What is praline?

You'll find it called out in a holiday cake recipe, tucked inside a fancy chocolate, spread across morning toast. The word "praline" is everywhere in pastry, and yet very few people could define it precisely. It might be the single most misunderstood word in the chocolate-maker's vocabulary, used interchangeably for at least four completely different things: a French paste, a French confection, a Belgian filled chocolate, and an American pecan candy from Louisiana.

Time to set things straight. Because at Juliette & Chocolat, praline isn't a footnote. It's an obsession we openly own.

A history that starts with a kitchen accident

To understand praline, you have to go back to 17th-century France, to the court of Louis XIII. The story, as is often the case in food history, is a blend of fact and legend, but the broad outline stays consistent.

Marshal du Plessis-Praslin, diplomat and swordsman, kept a head chef in his kitchen (Clément Lassagne or Clément Jaluzot, the record isn't sure which). One day, that chef saw one of his apprentices nibbling on stray almonds and bits of caramel that had fallen on the work surface. The idea took shape. He decided to deliberately coat whole almonds in cooked sugar, and a new confection was born. The marshal couldn't get enough of it, asked for more, and gave the creation a name lightly twisted from his own: "prasline".

In retirement, the marshal settled in Montargis, founded the Maison de la Praline (still operating today), and made the confection known across France. So at the start, praline was this: a single whole almond, glossy, coated in caramel.

The praline paste we know today came later, when people began grinding those caramelized almonds into an aromatic paste, which has since become the raw material for a thousand pastries.

The four-way confusion, finally untangled

Here's the most common mix-up, sorted out once and for all.

Praliné (the paste). The paste obtained by grinding nuts (almonds, hazelnuts, or a blend of both) that have first been cooked and caramelized in sugar. This is the version you find at the heart of French desserts: inside a Paris-Brest, in a yule log, as the filling of a chocolate bonbon. Smooth, intense, fragrant, it's one of the signatures of French pastry.

The French praline. Plessis-Praslin's original confection: a whole nut coated in caramelized sugar. This is the Montargis "prasline". Not to be confused with the next one.

The Belgian praline. Same word, completely different product. In Belgium, a praline is a filled chocolate bonbon (with a ganache, a praline paste, a caramel, or a cream centre). This is what most English speakers would simply call a "filled chocolate" or "chocolate bonbon". Most fine Belgian chocolates are, technically, pralines.

Pralin. The cracked, granular version of praliné. Before grinding the caramelized almonds into a smooth paste, you first get a pralin: caramelized sugar and nuts crushed into rough fragments. It's used as a crunchy garnish, sprinkled over a mousse, yogurt or ice cream.

And to round out the picture, a distant cousin: gianduja, the 19th-century Italian invention, which is essentially praliné already mixed with chocolate. The molten centre of the Praline Hazelnut Fondant from our Workshop is very close to it.

How is praliné actually made?

The principle is simple, the execution a bit more demanding. You roast the nuts (often hazelnuts, almonds, or the famous combination of both), make a caramel either dry or with a little water, coat the nuts in caramel, and let the whole thing cool into a sheet.

Then comes the decisive step: grinding. You break the sheet into pieces and run it through a blender in short bursts, in several stages. At first you get a granular pralin. But as you keep grinding, the heat from the blades releases the natural oils of the nuts, and the mixture gradually transforms into a smooth, glossy, almost pourable paste. That's praliné.

The degree to which the nuts are roasted determines the final intensity. A light roast gives a soft, almost vanilla-tinged praliné. A deep roast gives a bold, almost bitter result, with intense toasted-nut notes. Every chocolatier has their preference.

The homemade version is entirely doable. Our praliné spread recipe from Juliette walks you through it step by step, in a chocolate-laced version that's ready to spread.

Why praline and chocolate work so well together

It's a story of complementarity. Chocolate brings bitterness, depth, firmness. Praline brings roundness, sweetness, toasted hazelnut, silkiness. Together, the two cover a flavour spectrum that neither covers on its own.

And here, Juliette has firm opinions. As she explains in her post on the Rocher Praliné, it's milk chocolate that best brings hazelnut to life: the soft, sweet, milky side of milk chocolate is what lets the hazelnut's flavour fully come through. Purists will say dark chocolate. Not her. For her, it's milk chocolate. It's a choice. It's a signature.

The praline tradition at Juliette & Chocolat

Praline, at the Workshop, isn't a menu option. It's a longstanding obsession of Juliette's. When you love an ingredient that much, you find ways to declined it.

You'll find it across many of our creations:

• The Praline Hazelnut Fondant, with its molten praline centre and crunchy caramelized hazelnut bits.
• The crunchy praline spread, our ready-to-eat take on the classic chocolate-hazelnut pairing.
• The Rocher Praliné, Juliette's favourite dessert, that you can make at home or order from the boutique.
• The homemade praline spread from her cookbook Mon Année Chocolat, to make yourself on a rainy Saturday.
• The little Crunchy Milk Chocolate Hazelnut Rocher, a treat of milk chocolate and hazelnut!

We're carrying on, in our own way, a long French pastry tradition that traces back to that 17th-century kitchen where a chef happened to stumble onto something magical. We just try not to betray the original idea: good nuts, good caramel, very good chocolate. Nothing more is needed.

Going further

• Juliette's praline spread recipe, the homemade version to try this weekend.
• Her cookbook Mon Année Chocolat and Les Brownies de Juliette, in the Recipe Books by Juliette collection.
• Our technique guides: How to melt chocolate and How to make a perfect ganache.

All our praline products are available online (free shipping on orders of $99 and up, across Canada), in our restaurants, and at the boutique of our Chocolate Workshop in Greenfield Park, on Montreal's South Shore.

Praline is nearly four centuries of history in a single spoonful. Not bad, for an almond that fell, by accident, into a caramel.