25 January 2006

Oregon Hazelnuts + Recipe : Praline Paste

copyrighted. All rights reservedHazelnuts. Have you seen the groves of trees while in Oregon? . Drive toward Wilsonville, Oregon and you will see them. Interspersed between suburban sprawl and small businesses, the further you proceed --- slowly the vast quilt of these orchards starts to fully engulf the land. Hashed out in a herringbone pattern, these are stubby trees with intricate canopies. They spread their branches enveloping the crops of nuts in an umbrella of leaves


The Willamette Valley is responsible for %99 of U.S hazelnut production. A great site to find out more about Hazelnuts, including tasty formulas (recipes) and other links, is Oregon's Hazelnut Industry website.


Nuts are unfairly avoided due to misconceptions of being unhealthy and full of fat. This may be true for certain varieties of nuts, but Hazelnuts are a heart healthy choice. They contain %91 percent mono unsaturated fat and less than 4 percent saturated fat. Not to mention significant amounts of protein, fiber, iron, phosphorus, vitamin E, folate and many other essential nutrients.


Today I will share a great way to introduce hazelnuts to your palate. Learn how to make this paste from scratch. Praline paste is usually a baking item you rarely see in supermarkets. It is mostly found in specialty shops such as cake decorating suppliers. However, I couldn't find it at The Decorette Shop , Portland Oregon's own cake specialty supplier. To purchase praline paste you are most likely going to run into prices ranging from $15 -20 per 2 lb container. It can be very expensive to purchase retail.


Praline Paste Formula:

Lightly Toast whole hazelnuts on a baking sheet.

In a stainless steel sauce pan, combine equal parts sugar
and water. Do not stir . The mixture will reduce --- allow
to
caramelize (you will see the sides start to color first).

Once the sugar reduction has caramelized, remove from heat.


sugar reduction & nuts are briskly stirred to coat nuts









The lightly toasted hazelnuts
are
added to the sugar
reduction.Nut carmel is cooled on marble slab
They are then stirred briskly,this should
be done very quickly as the sugar reduction
will
start to harden.

You want to coat the hazelnuts in the caramel.
The heat from the caramel will warm the nuts
and allow the hazelnuts essence to permeate
the caramel.

The nut caramel is then poured onto a greased
marble slab. The cooled caramel will be less reddish
brown in color.

art 067










Allow the caramel to cool. Once cool use a spatula to
once cool the nut carmel is spread and flipped over
spread and press the nut caramel in an even layer.

Flip the cooling layer
over. Allow to harden.







Once the nut caramel has hardened, use a rolling pin or some
other weighty tool to break up the hardened nut caramel.The nut brittle is broken up and processed in a FP until a fine paste
The pieces should be small enough to fit in your food processor.


Put nut caramel pieces into the food processor and pulse unit the pieces begin to smooth until a paste. Continue to process until desired smoothness.






Store in an airtight container. This paste is great to jazz up your pastry cream -- just add a small amount of praline paste to the cooled pastry cream before adding to
cream puffs.





18  Comments
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18 comments

1:22 AM, March 12, 2006 Reply  

Its funny- I'd been looking for a hazelnut paste recipe and here this morning all of a sudden I get like five... lol Thanks alot, I really appreciate the info. I'm off to search for fondant recipe (for napoleans)

3:15 PM, March 13, 2006 Reply  

I appreciate you leaving a comment, Thor.

I am glad to see readers getting some use out of these formulas.

Oh, I stopped by your blog, looks like you are really into baking :)

Keep it up!

Anonymous
1:25 PM, September 09, 2008 Reply  

how long does this take??

6:49 PM, September 12, 2008 Reply  

@urawazaonna :

To answer your question there are a few things to consider first -

1.)Are you working in a commercial kitchen/bakery? The equipment tends to be more powerful and commercial gas ranges(stoves) have a higher temp / flame, than say your typical home appliances or electric stove top.

2.)The volume of praline paste you want to make. The smaller the batch, the less prep and overall production time you will need.

Generally for a small home batch:

It takes 5-8 min. to lightly toast the hazelnuts. The should be allowed to cool - if you add them to the caramel warm they will soak up the caramel & become gummy.

A small batch of caramel (say 2c. water to 2c. sugar) takes about 15-22 min. to get to the right color. Do not stir the caramel or swirl. Just allow it to be caramelized on it's own. If it splatters up the sides of your pan - use a wet pastry brush to wipe down the sides so that caramel doesn't harden faster then the rest.

The stirring in of the toasted hazelnuts about a minute.

5-10 minutes for the nut brittle to flatten, before it's flipped, so it takes about 10-30 minutes to harden - this varies though due to humidity in the air and the overall temp of your kitchen.

The breaking of the brittle 1-5 minutes. I suggest you use a parchment sheet over the top or put the brittle in a heavy duty freezer bag - the shards of brittle will shoot all over.

As for the pulsing to actually get the nut brittle to a paste consistency - well it will take about 1-4 minutes in a typical Food Processor, using a standard blade. I would use the pulse function, because if you use just hit power it might give you the wrong consistency - you want to control the grinding.

Hopefully this answers your question. Please let me know how this worked for you. Cheers!

Anonymous
10:53 AM, November 09, 2008 Reply  

How many cups of nuts should you be using with the 2 cup/2cup mixture - are all measures equal orr do you need a higher percentage of nuts? thanks

4:42 AM, May 08, 2009 Reply  

Can anyone give me a simple recipe for pancakes?

2:54 AM, January 28, 2010 Reply  

I need praline paste for baking stuff..where can i get a reasonably priced one?! just within manhattan?! help please..

2:32 AM, May 15, 2010 Reply  

How to process the hazelnuts are cool. Approximately how long the process?

8:05 PM, June 09, 2010 Reply  

I never felt this when sung by the peas-in-law by my father. It felt so good before processed. Once processed it was like what? Curious to try it ...

10:32 AM, July 04, 2010 Reply  

I love hazelnuts, especially from Oregon.I would eat that hardened caramelized ones as a snack.Thanks for sharing.

SGS
12:29 PM, July 25, 2010 Reply  

Hazelnut which is a very important nutritional value in a well-balanced diet, has several important health benefits in protecting against diseases. So don't wait a long time to make this recipe ;) thanks...

12:37 PM, July 25, 2010 Reply  

@Anonymous: It depends - this is all based on sight --- you will want enough whole hazelnuts that the caramel just coats them in the pan once mixed - there should only be a little caramel at the bottom of the pan when you are done.

7:29 AM, October 10, 2010 Reply  

hi Amber i like your recipe thnx. :)

4:27 AM, October 25, 2010 Reply  

Wow, yummy and delicious recipe of Hazelnuts. I will definitely try it.Thanks for sharing.

Regards,

Sophie

2:35 AM, November 08, 2010 Reply  

Praline paste can be used in all sorts of deserts. I will be making good use of it this christmas time.

8:18 AM, March 25, 2011 Reply  

It looks so delicious can I have a bite of those?

I’d better try that one out, hope I’d get it right. Thanks for sharing your recipes on how to make pralines. I’ve learned a lot from you.

Anonymous
2:49 PM, April 04, 2011 Reply  

I think, am not sure, that you're ratio of water to sugar is off - equal parts makes simple syrup, or takes forever to cook down to caramel - you don't actually need any water, but a little bit will make it less likely to burn - but you will need to watch for crystallization - don't stir until completely melted and keep a pastry brush next to the pot with a little water - brush the inside of the pot just above the level of the sugar/water to keep any crystals from forming and falling back in the caramel mix.

Jo
9:30 AM, April 13, 2011 Reply  

Great recipe! I am a bit curious though if it won't harden if kept on the fridge? If it does do you need to heat it up to make it into a paste again? Or stored at room temperature is alright?

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