Nana's Pralines

I hate my neighbor. I know she reads this blog but I'm saying it anyway...Melissa, I hate you. Actually she's pretty awesome but at this moment she's on my list and I'll tell you why.

For Christmas she sent over some homemade pralines. I thought pralines were sort of like turtles and didn't think I liked them so when Dave gave them to me (he is allergic) I was thankful for the gift of course but not terribly excited. Then I tried one - O.M.G. Seriously I can't think of another thing to say about them - except I LOVED THEM.  So of course I begged her for the recipe and she was nice enough to share it with me. I kind of forgot about them after that but today I was going thru my baking supplies to see what I could make without having to go to the store and found some pecan chips - I remembered her recipe and decided to give it a try. This is where the whole "I hate her" thing comes in - I just made a batch and they are SO good that I am really struggling with not eating more of them. Or more accurately with not eating all of them. I hate her for exposing me to this new favorite candy, for giving me the recipe, and for contributing to my diet downfall. Make these at your own risk people.

Nana's Pralines

1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup milk

Place in a saucepan over medium high heat, bring to a soft boil stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until it reaches soft-ball stage on a  candy thermometer  (240 degrees).  Remove from heat and add:

4 Tablespoons butter
1 cup pecans (break in large pieces)
1 Tablespoon vanilla.

Stir with a wooden spoon for a couple minutes until it begins to lighten in color and gets thicker, but not too thick (that's the tricky part). Drop by spoonfuls onto wax paper to cool and set up.

A couple notes: I used pecan chips instead of breaking up whole pecans which changes the texture a little bit of course. I don't have any of the original amazing sample left to compare these to but I remember hers were more of the boiled sugar mixture spread out in circles with big pieces of pecans, mine are thicker and more like cookies almost - they are similar in texture to no bake cookies - because the nuts and sugar are not separated as much. Might be that I didn't boil them or stir them enough (or too much) but even though they aren't exactly like hers they are still SO good. So so good. Mmmmm......I hope you'll try these and then you'll hate her too :)



PS: Just to be clear -  I don't hate my neighbor. I love her! And I love these pralines.