Today, June 24, 2014, is National Praline Day. A Praline is sugar candy made from nuts and sugar syrup, whether in whole pieces or a ground powder, or, alternatively, a chocolate cookie containing the ground powder or nuts. Pralines have a creamy consistency, similar to fudge. Originally inspired in France by the cook of a 17th-century sugar industrialist, early pralines were whole almonds individually coated in caramelized sugar. French settlers brought this recipe to Louisiana, where both sugar cane and pecan trees were plentiful.
