Happy Wednesday Bread Heads and others! Welcome to the Candy mini-series inside the Sunday Bread Mega-Series!
Tonight we’ll be making a really easy candy that always blows people away, especially those from the South, Orange Pralines. This is a variant on the traditional pecan candy. Like the original, this is basically pecans and sugar, but the addition of heavy cream and the zest of an entire large orange makes them especially delicious.
The only problem with this candy is try as I might I just can’t get it to look that fabulous. The patties are a little irregular and the candy is always a white that looks vaguely like cookie dough. But they taste so good that once people try them they completely ignore the looks and just scarf!
If you are looking for the pervious candies in this series you can find them at the links below, or if you want to see all the recipes from the nearly 2 year old Sunday Bread series, you can just click on the Sunday Bread tag.
Chocolate Covered Butter Creams
Perfect Peanut Brittle
Chocolate Covered Caramels
Now, let’s make some candy!
Orange Pralines
Ingredients:
1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
3 cups sugar
Zest from 1 large orange
3 cups pecans
Equipment:
1 4 quart pot
Candy Thermometer (there is just no way to make this without a thermometer and the $20 you’ll spend will be well worth it when you roll out the fabulous candy!)
2 sheet pans covered with parchment paper
Method:
Start by giving your orange a really good washing. Oranges are usually pretty clean but since you’ll be providing the major flavor from the skin of this orange, lets make sure there is only the skin that goes into the pot.
Go ahead and get the zest off the orange now. I like to use a microplane for this, but originally grated the orange with a small box grater that had a very small but not micro grating surface. It made the candy a little more marmalade like, in that you’d get a little shred of zest now and then. If that sounds good to you, use that method. Set the zest aside.
In your 4 quart pot combine the cream, corn syrup and sugar. Place over Medium-High heat and cooking, stirring constantly until it comes to a boil, about 10 minutes usually.
Using a pastry brush, brush down the sides of the pan so that there are no sugar crystals present. If they are they act as seed crystals and you get very grainy candy.
Clip on your candy thermometer and cook, stirring constantly, until the candy reaches 238 degrees (subtract 12 degrees if you are cooking this above 5,000 feet).
Remove it from the heat and, just dump the orange zest into the pot. Do not stir it! Just let the zest land where it may. Let it stand at room temperature for 15 minutes.
Set up your sheet pans, this will be the landing space for the pralines.
Stir in the pecans. Keep stirring until the sugar mix thickens a little bit, about 1 ½ minutes. It will look like this when it is done:
Then using the wooden spoon make 2” patties. As the candy cools it will thicken even more, so you might want to just use your fingers to form patty’s, just be sure the sugar is not too hot.
Let the candy completely cool then place in small paper cups and store in an air tight container for up to 2 weeks. Not that you’ll have any that long, but we can dream, can’t we?
This is a fast recipe that is a crowd pleaser! It is by far the most blidingly sweet candy I make and I always vow not to make it anymore but people keep asking for it year after year, so I guess sugar works sometimes.
Time for a word from the sponsors folks!
Did you know that there is cookbook of the Sunday Bread series? It is called “A Liberal Sprinkle of Flour" and it available for sale on Create Space and Amazon. The book, like this series, is mostly breads, Rye’s, Sourdough’s, French, Italian, Bagels, Rolls, Whole Wheat’s and White’s, with a few treats thrown in for good measure!
All the recipes have the same kind of step by step instructions and the (to my mind) humorous tone that this recipe has. It is suitable for every level of home baker. All the recipes have been home kitchen tested (and mostly home kitchen developed) and are very nearly no fail.
It does not assume that the reader knows all the common techniques and every recipe goes into strong detail on just how to make fabulous bread right from the word “Go”.
If you’re interested just follow the links and you can order it tonight. As you might guess, it makes a great gift, but if you do give it be sure that who ever gets it makes you some scrumptious bread!
The flour is yours.