A glossy hazelnut praline paste made with 50% hazelnuts, and one of the hardest working fillings we stock.

Roasted hazelnuts and sugar are ground together until the paste is smooth and pasty, with a sweet, deeply roasted hazelnut aroma and nothing in it besides a little lecithin. It is ready to use straight from the tub, and comes in a 6kg tub from Lubeca in Germany.

What Is Praline Paste? 

Praliné is roasted nuts ground with sugar, and here the nuts are 50% of the paste with sugar making up almost all of the rest. It is not a nut butter, which is nuts alone, and not a gianduja, which adds chocolate. That halfway position is what makes it so useful: sweet enough to pipe into a bonbon as it is, and strong enough in flavour to carry a whole gelato or buttercream on its own. If you want a praline that sets firm enough to slice, our Lubeca Hazelnut Praline Paste (Sliceable) (SCM136) is the same idea with cocoa butter in it.

How to Use Hazelnut Praline Paste 

Stir it before use, as a little separation in the tub is normal. Fold it into tempered chocolate to make your own gianduja, whisk it into a ganache or a crème pâtissière, or ripple it through gelato at the end of churning. For a piped bonbon centre, blend it with melted milk chocolate until it holds its shape, since the chocolate is what sets the paste and stops it flowing back out of the shell. It works cold as well, spread between the layers of a cut bar or beaten through a buttercream.

Flavours and Inclusions

Because it is only nuts and sugar, this paste takes flavour and texture without fighting it. A pinch of sea salt sharpens the roast, and a little coffee extract or a dark rum lifts it without making it taste of either. For crunch, fold in feuilletine, caramelised hazelnuts or cocoa nibs at the last moment so they stay crisp. If you want a firmer set, work in tempered chocolate; if you want it lighter, aerate it with a whipped ganache or a little cocoa butter.

Troubleshooting 

Store between 15 and 18C at around 60% relative humidity, out of direct light. Oil separating at the top of a warm tub is normal and stirs back in. If a filling made with this paste is too soft to cut, add more tempered chocolate rather than more paste, and let it crystallise before you cut it.

Pairings and Ideas 

Roasted hazelnut works with milk and dark chocolate, coffee, salted caramel, banana, pear, fig, rum, honey and orange. A few ideas to try:

• Your own gianduja, folded into tempered milk chocolate
• A piped hazelnut praline bonbon finished with sea salt
• Hazelnut gelato, or a praline ripple through a chocolate base
• Whisked into a crème pâtissière for a Paris-Brest
• A praline buttercream between layers of coffee sponge
• Swirled through a brownie batter before baking
• Spread under a pear and frangipane tart