Praline is a family of confection

Confectionery

Confectionery is the set of food items that are rich in sugar, any one or type of which is called a confection. Modern usage may include substances rich in artificial sweeteners as well...

s made from nut

Nut (fruit)

A nut is a hard-shelled fruit of some plants having an indehiscent seed. While a wide variety of dried seeds and fruits are called nuts in English, only a certain number of them are considered by biologists to be true nuts...

s and sugar syrup.

Europe

As originally inspired in France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 at the Château of Vaux-le-Vicomte

Vaux-le-Vicomte

The Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte is a baroque French château located in Maincy, near Melun, 55 km southeast of Paris in the Seine-et-Marne département of France...

 by the cook of the 17th-century sugar

Sugar

Sugar is a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor.Sucrose in its refined form primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet...

 industrialist Marshal du Plessis-Praslin (1598–1675), early pralines were whole almonds individually coated in caramelized sugar, as opposed to dark nougat

Nougat

Nougat is a variety of similar traditional confectioneries made with sugar and/or honey, roasted nuts , and sometimes chopped candied fruit. The consistency of nougat can range from soft and chewy to hard and crunchy depending on its composition, and it is used in a variety of candy bars and...

, where a sheet of caramelized sugar covers many nuts.
Although the New World had been discovered and settled by this time, pecans and chocolate-producing cocoa (both native to the New World) were originally not ingredients in European pralines. The European chefs used local, easily available and relatively cheap ingredients: nuts such as almonds and hazelnuts.

The powder made by grinding up such sugar-coated nuts is called pralin, and is an ingredient in many cake

Cake

Cake is a form of bread or bread-like food. In its modern forms, it is typically a sweet and enriched baked dessert. In its oldest forms, cakes were normally fried breads or cheesecakes, and normally had a disk shape...

s, pastries, and ice creams. When this powder is mixed with chocolate it becomes praliné in French, which gave birth to what is known in French as praline belge, Belgian chocolates. The word praliné is used colloquially in France and Switzerland to refer to these, known simply as chocolates in English, i.e. various centres coated with chocolate. In Europe, the word praline is used to mean either this powder or the paste made from it, often used to fill chocolates, hence its use by synecdoche

Synecdoche

Synecdoche , meaning "simultaneous understanding") is a figure of speech in which a term is used in one of the following ways:* Part of something is used to refer to the whole thing , or...

 in Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

, and Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 to refer to filled chocolates in general. In the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, the term can refer either to praline (the filling for chocolates) or, less commonly, to the original whole-nut pralines.

In Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, the nuts are usually almonds or sometimes hazelnut

Hazelnut

A hazelnut is the nut of the hazel and is also known as a cob nut or filbert nut according to species. A cob is roughly spherical to oval, about 15–25 mm long and 10–15 mm in diameter, with an outer fibrous husk surrounding a smooth shell. A filbert is more elongated, being about twice...

s.

America

French settlers brought this recipe to Louisiana

Louisiana

Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

, where both sugar cane and pecan

Pecan

The pecan , Carya illinoinensis, is a species of hickory, native to south-central North America, in Mexico from Coahuila south to Jalisco and Veracruz, in the United States from southern Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Indiana east to western Kentucky, southwestern Ohio, North Carolina, South...

 trees were plentiful. During the 19th century, New Orleans chefs substituted pecans for almond

Almond

The almond , is a species of tree native to the Middle East and South Asia. Almond is also the name of the edible and widely cultivated seed of this tree...

s, added cream

Cream

Cream is a dairy product that is composed of the higher-butterfat layer skimmed from the top of milk before homogenization. In un-homogenized milk, over time, the lighter fat rises to the top. In the industrial production of cream this process is accelerated by using centrifuges called "separators"...

 to thicken the confection, and thus created what became known throughout the American South as the praline.
Pralines have a creamy consistency, similar to fudge. It is usually made by combining sugar (often brown), butter, and cream or buttermilk in a pot on medium-high heat, and stirring constantly, until most of the water has evaporated and it has reached a thick texture with a brown color. Then it is usually dropped by spoonfuls onto waxpaper or a sheet of aluminum foil greased with butter, and left to cool.

Belgian pralines

Commonly known as "Belgian chocolates" or "chocolate bonbons" in English speaking countries, they are chocolate pieces filled with a mixture substance, first introduced by Jean Neuhaus, a Swiss chocolatier

Chocolatier

A chocolatier is someone who makes confectionery from chocolate. Chocolatiers are distinct from chocolate makers, who create chocolate from cacao beans and other ingredients.Professional chocolatiers study topics including the following:...

, in 1912. There have always been many forms and shapes in Belgian pralines. They nearly always contain a hard chocolate shell with a softer (sometimes liquid) filling. The filling can be butter, liquor, nuts, marzipan

Marzipan

Marzipan is a confection consisting primarily of sugar and almond meal. Persipan is a similar, yet less expensive product, in which the almonds are replaced by apricot or peach kernels...

, or even a different kind of chocolate. They are usually wrapped as a gift. Today, Belgian pralines are still very popular in Belgium as well as in other countries. The most important manufacturers are Neuhaus

Chocolatier Neuhaus

Neuhaus is a manufacturer of luxury Belgian chocolates, biscuits and ice cream. The company was founded in Brussels in 1857 by Jean Neuhaus, a Swiss immigrant, who opened the first store in the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert. In 1912, his grandson, Jean Neuhaus II, invented the chocolate bonbon or...

, Godiva

Godiva (chocolatier)

Godiva Chocolatier is a manufacturer of premium chocolates and related products. Godiva, founded in Belgium in 1926, was purchased by Turkish Yıldız Holding, owner of the Ülker Group, on Nov 20th, 2007...

, Leonidas

Leonidas (chocolate maker)

Leonidas Confiserie SA is a chocolate producer with an international presence, based in Belgium. The company's focus is pralines ; it also sells marzipan, solid chocolates, and other confections...

 and Guylian

Guylian

Guylian is a Belgian chocolate manufacturer founded by Guy Foubert in 1960. The company takes its name from the combination of Foubert's first name with that of his wife, Liliane....

. These Belgian companies are well known on the international market.