Showing posts with label French grocery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label French grocery. Show all posts

Sunday, 18 August 2013

Home-made praline / praliné

I'm preparing some special hazelnut sablé biscuits for my son's daycare snacks. Those French biscuits needs some flavoursome praliné paste, which probably can't be bought from NZ supermarkets or groceries. The good news is that it is super easy to make your own praline and once you have tasted this delicious topping or paste, I bet you'll become addict straight away!


The recipe I'm sharing today comes from a world-renowned French pastry chef: Philippe Conticini, so it is a high standard recipe, but you'll be stroke how easy it is. You just need a good food processor and a little bit of patience.

But what's praline or praliné? It's a combination of hazelnuts and/or almonds, but could also contain pistachio or cashew. The nuts are roasted, then cooked in a slightly dark toffee and pulverised finely. After few seconds in the mill or blender, you'll obtain a powder - the praline -, if you keep grounding, then you'll obtain a paste - the praliné -.



The praline is a gourmet topping for ice-cream or custard, crumble and apple pies, and I bet it would be lovely on the top of a pavlova... I'm just saying...
The praliné paste is delicious spread on toasts, combined in crème chantilly for choux filling, or combined in cake, brioches, cookies and biscuits.