La Praluline de Pralus

Thanks to blog reader Pete, Steve and I popped back over to Vieux Lyon on our last full day in the city. Our goal - to stop at the Pralus chocolate/pastry shop to purchase La Praluline de Pralus. The link should take you to the shop page in English if you’re interested in reading more about François Pralus, a winner of France’s coveted Meilleur Ouvrier de France, MOF (essentially a best in their field designation).

Having been generally disappointed with the various praline rose items we tasted (except the tarte from Paul Bocuse), I was given a push by Pete to give La Praluline a try. OK! We headed over the river to the old town on Good Friday afternoon - LOTS of folks out and about on a beautiful sunny day.

Photo compliments of Steve Soper

These babies were literally flying out the door of the shop. We could see the ready and waiting inventory both on the front counter as well in the back kitchen. The sales folk were efficient and friendly, one being the wrapper/bagger and one taking payment with barely a moment to spare until the next customer stepped up.

Once I opened the package I found an informative insert all about this regional specialty. A buttery brioche loaded with chopped pink pralines which, at Pralus, are made with BOTH almonds and hazelnuts chosen from the best producers. I’m in.

Looks like some kind of meteorite or moonscape!

We shared a small slice mid-afternoon just to get a taste (didn’t want to spoil our appetite for dinner, don’t ya know). Crunchy, buttery and delicious.

Just loaded with pralines rose

Due to the brioche butteriness, this keeps well for several days and doesn’t mind a short warm up in a medium oven for a few minutes. If you’re ever in Lyon, give it a try.

Here’s another vision of spring to make you smile.

Pralines rose de Lyon

I’ve been vaguely aware of these traditionally Lyonnaise treats but never really made a point of familiarizing myself with them and how they might be used in the baking and pastry world. I don’t really recall seeing them used during my pastry training at Le Cordon Bleu Paris but that doesn’t mean there weren’t any lurking around.

These things are EVERYwhere in Lyon! Basically pink-red tinged sugar coated almonds, my first taste of a morsel from the sac on the right (from C-Gastronomie, a shop just around the corner from our AirBnB) was less then exciting - too sweet, kind of soft and not crunchy and crisp as I had expected. Remember French burnt peanuts? I used to love those!

Me being me, I had to buy another bag to make a comparison. The sac on the left is from Paul Bocuse’s shop at Lyon’s foodie nirvana, Les Halles de Paul Bocuse - other then different words on the ribbon and package, they look exactly the same. My side by side tasting indicated they were indeed the same. My cross section showed me that the almond inside is about the same size and the coating about the same thickness. There must be a large production facility somewhere that churns these babies out.

I was more intrigued by the pastries that are made using these pralines rose than the candy itself. We’ve seen MANY shops selling praline rose tartes, sablés et brioche de St-Genix all of which incorporate them into the final product.

Where to start. My first trial was from Boulangerie Ferriandière just a few blocks down from our AirBnB. We went in to purchase a loaf of bread (delicious by the way) and there I saw both individual brioches with pralines rose and larger brioches de St.-Genix. I went for the single. Not much to look at really.

I must admit that brioche in general can be pretty boring - I was hoping for the best. Check out the inside.

Hmmmmm . . . . not much going on in the praline rose department

I was right - it had little to recommend it from the praline standpoint. I found only a few small pieces of praline and the brioche itself was dry. I admit this was a pathetic attempt at investigation into the brioche side of things. Typically I take all my own photos but this time here’s a Wikipedia image of the larger version - it at least gives you sense of it. We saw a number of people strolling around with these, tearing pieces off as they went. Hmmm. . .

Credit to Wikipedia for this photo

Next - Steve and I returned to Les Halles de Paul Bocuse and spied a number of tartes à la praline rose from the likes of P.B.’s and Richard Sève’s pâtisseries. We purchased a couple of individual tartes for tasting purposes.

Paul Bocuse version

I did some research on the making of said tartes. Sève’s site/recipe (in French) claims that they make “la Véritable Tarte à la praline”. Here’s the link to the recipe in French - very detailed. They highlight the fact that they make their own pralines rose in copper equipment, coating them and then crushing them just so for their tartes.

The tarte process: in a nutshell it consists of a blind baked pâte sucrée crust and a filling made with equal weights (200-250 g each for a 8-9” tarte) of crushed/chopped pralines rose and heavy cream plus vanilla. Bring the cream with the seeds from one vanilla bean to a boil, then stir in the crushed pralines and let cook about 5-10 minutes. Pour that into your cooled blind baked crust and bake for 5 minutes at 200ºC. Let cool and refrigerate overnight before serving. Sounds pretty straight forward, right?

If you want to make your own pralines rose, you first roast the almonds then coat them in sugar syrup that has a red coloring added. The nuts ultimately become coated with a hard sugar coating to create the outer shell. As I read about the process, it’s not unlike caramelizing hazelnuts and almonds to make praliné paste used in many pastry applications.

Of course, if you wish to purchase already made pralines rose, Sève recommends theirs. Bien sur! But . . . . when we looked at the shop to buy a bag of their’s - none to be had!

Let’s talk tarte tasting! The appearance of les tartes à la praline rose from the two shops is quite different as is easily seen below. Bocuse’s tart shell is deeper and the filling is smoother and less chunky while Sève’s shell is more shallow and full of praline pieces.

As I cut into each, the texture of Bocuse’s filling is thicker, almost custard like, while Sève’s is thinner and more jammy/chunky. Bocuse’s crust is snappy and crisp while Sève’s is softer in texture.

Over all Steve and I preferred Bocuse’s version. The crust certainly won me over and the filling had a lovely unctuousness without being too sweet.

Now for the big question - will I make this when we get home?? We’ll see. I’d love to reproduce the Bocuse filling but not necessarily with the red coloring. I’m very curious about the simple mixture of finely chopped caramelized nuts and heavy cream as a filling. Hmmm . . . . maybe I’ll pursue it. Time will tell.

Lyon

Check out this wisteria would you?!! We’re seeing gorgeous flowers out and about but that’s not what I’m here to talk about right now.

This may sound a bit odd to many of you but, one of the things we enjoy when traveling in Europe, France in particular, is going grocery shopping. It’s fun to check out the shelves for interesting new foods or versions of some of our household favorites, presented not only in French but in slightly different packaging.

Granted, if one is visiting a place for a very short time, it’s unlikely that you’ll be pursuing that particular endeavor. But since we typically book AirBnBs with decent kitchens, it’s nice to be able to do some food preparation on our own rather than eating out all the time. Particularly stocking things like fruit, yogurt, eggs, nuts (roasted Marcona almonds!), bread, cheese and perhaps the occasional morning pastry treat allows us to enjoy the simple pleasures like morning coffee and a light breakfast without having to hit the streets first thing. And we’ve been enjoying “at home” evening meals of veggies, rice, chicken, pasta and fish in various combinations.

It’s also interesting, and at times eye opening, to compare prices, especially as some in our American groceries have sky rocketed. As an aside, some of you know how I tend to be detail oriented thus . . . . . . fair warning - perhaps boring calculations coming up!

Five pounds of my go-to all purpose/bread/white whole wheat flours from King Arthur were typically $3.99 per bag ($0.80/lb) at our local Meijer not that long ago. Now they’re running around $7 ($1.40/lb) unless you snag ‘em on sale. The best deal I find in Grand Rapids is at Costco where I can buy 12 pound bags of King Arthur all purpose and bread flours at $8.99 ($0.75/pound). I’ll take it!

Here in Lyon I’ve been checking out some grocery store flour brands at U Express and Monoprix, as well as the Francine line of flours, pretty standard in French markets. I must note here that the exchange rate keeps changing and not in our favor mind you. So price quotes may be off a bit.

Right across the street from our AirBnB, the “U Express” store brand farine de blé (blé = wheat) is sold in 1 kilo (2.2 lbs) packages. T45 is the quasi-equivalent of our all purpose flour. There’s a fluide version for 1,02 euro ($0.53 per lb) that’s more finely milled and recommended for liquid batters like crepes. Then there’s one pour cuisine et pâtisserie for 1,12 euro ($0.58 per lb). Not bad at all.

We also stopped at a nearby Monoprix to check out the Francine price for T45 - 1,49 euro for a kilo or $0.77/lb. Not bad either - along the lines of the Costco King Arthur prices.

On a non flour note, I’m throwing Bonne Maman into the ring, since it’s our at home go-to store brand for jam. That price has gone up considerably in the US - anywhere from $7 to $8 a jar at our local Meijer (I also found some flavors for $6.79 on Amazon). Of course there is the issue of tariffs and France having to ship it to the USA so I know it’s not a fair comparison.

Here in Lyon the Bonne Maman prices run 1,85 euros ($2.10) for Fraises (strawberry always seems to be the most cost effective, even in the US) up to 3,24 euros ($3.69) for Fraises et Fraises des bois OR 3,19 euros ($3.63) for Myrtille et Cassis OR 3,00 euros ($3.42) for Abricots et Peches , combos which we don’t typically even see in the US.

OK - that’s it for now. Enough already.

Enjoy spring - we certainly are.

On the grounds of Musée des Beaux-arts in Lyon

Until next time! Ciao.