All Levels
Pralines are a core element within chocolate and dessert making. Learn how to use and make a wide variety of pralines for different uses.
Date: 16th October
Price: £29
Time: 4pm-5:15pm U.K.
Livestream Class
Pralines can be used throughout all areas of chocolate and dessert work
If you can make nut butter, you can make a praline. Praline is a versatile item within chocolate making that can be
used in a wide variety of ways. In this class, I’ll show you a few of the ways I use it and
then let your creative juices flow!
The key to great chocolate… your fillings!
Pralines are a cornerstone of my chocolate work. They can be used to layer bonbons, create crunchy layers in filled bars or made into little chocolates unto themselves. Due to their versatility, and the ability to control their consistency, they can also be used as a piped filling inside dried fruits.
You can also use pralines in your dessert work if you’d like an oozy element or to glaze a doughnut, for example.
What you’ll learn…
Making Praline Paste
In order to get a silky smooth praline paste, we’ll be using a stone grinder. By using this, instead of a food processor, you can add granulated sweeteners and still achieve a silky finish. This cannot be said for the food processor. If you’re wondering why you can’t just use a liquid sweetener, we’ll talk about that in class. But liquid causes nut butters to seize, so you can’t add enough to sweeten it while also maintaining a silky texture.
The Many Uses For Pralines
Once you have made your praline paste, what can you do with it? Praline can be set into a silicone mould, or hand rolled, and dipped into chocolate (or eaten as is). It can be used as a filling in chocolate bars, bonbons or simply piped into chocolate shells. As praline is fat based, you can add textures to it and they will retain their crunch! That’s a big bonus.
It can also be used in desserts as a glaze on cakes or doughnuts (for example) or as a liquid centre in a tart or entremet. Personally, I used pralines almost daily in my work and I’m still finding new and fun uses for it.
Using Alcohol To Make Hand-Dipped Pralines
This is where using a little liquid goes a long way and will actually create the consistency we want. In class we’ll make some hand-dipped boozy pralines and I’ll outline all you need to know for this particular technique, how to use liquids of any kind to your advantage and get tremendous flavour in every bite.
What If I Don’t Have A Grinder?
There are ways to make pralines without needing to make the nut butters (adding granulated sweeteners) and we will go through those options in class. It’s also outlined in the extensive class booklet.