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Chocolate Pralines

Chocolate pralines made from icing sugar, blanched almonds, and unsweetened chocolate.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and chocolate are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,733 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Chocolate Pralines

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the almonds and sugar

  1. Preheat your oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Place the blanched almonds in a shallow tin and bake until they are brown throughout.

  3. Chop the almonds finely, then pound them.

  4. In a saucepan, add the icing sugar without water and stir until slightly brown.

  5. Turn the sugar out onto a board and let it cool enough to handle.

  6. Break it up and pound it with the almonds until soft enough to roll into balls or shapes.

Shape and coat

  1. Set the shapes aside to dry until hard.

  2. Grate the chocolate and melt it in a basin over steam.

  3. Dip each ball into the melted chocolate and place them on an oiled tin to dry.

  4. Transfer the pralines to clean blotting paper to absorb excess grease.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Almond + chocolatetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,733 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Icing sugar
Forms the sweet paste that binds the almonds, and browns slightly for flavour.
Blanched almonds
Provide the main body and nutty texture of the praline centre.
Unsweetened chocolate
Forms the outer coating, adding richness and a bittersweet flavour.

The step that matters

Stirring the icing sugar until only slightly brown. Sugar darkens quickly once it starts to caramelise, so taking it too far turns it bitter. Stopping at a light brown keeps the flavour sweet and nutty.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, chocolate):

  1. Hazelnutfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Peanutfits about as well
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, chocolate. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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