On most days of the week, the various ovens and cooktops at the Texas Pecan Candy Shoppe in Schertz, just north of San Antonio, are hot and running by 5 a.m.
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The small storefront fills with the aromas of freshly prepared baked goods, ice creams, jams, jellies, and other confections, an inviting sensory welcome for the shop’s daily parade of visitors.
Texas Pecan Candy Shoppe is at 17605 I-35 N in Schertz. Call 210/651-5754; www.texaspecancandy.net.
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Many of the products use local ingredients, especially pecans from San Saba, which come in several flavors (sweet-and-spicy, honey-roasted, and cinnamon-and-sugar, for example). You’ll also find pecan brittle and pecan divinity.
The star of pecan confections here, however, is the creamy homemade praline. The Texas Pecan Candy Shoppe uses a recipe that’s “generations old,” according to Manager Julianna Lavulo, who helps owner Bonnie Palmer make the candies by hand in small batches and form them intoTexas-shaped pralines. “We get people in from places like Louisiana saying they’ve hunted high and low for a praline that tasted like how they tasted when they were growing up,” Julianna says.
The secret to the pralines’ popularity, Julianna says, is the same as with just about everything else prepared by the company, which turned 25 this year: “As much as we can, we source our ingredients from Texas. Then we put in a lot of hours over the stove.”