Praline Ice Cream Vs Butter Pecan: Here's The Actual Difference

While you may initially see both praline ice cream and butter pecan on a menu at your local ice cream parlor and think they're the same thing, they're actually very different. Sure, the two do play on the combination of crunchy pecans and creamy vanilla ice cream, but there's more to the story than that.

Praline ice cream, which is sometimes referred to as Pralines 'n Cream, is a decadent dessert made with crushed praline-coated pecans and a caramel swirl. The key ingredient here is, of course, pralines. While the base of a praline is a pecan, it's more like a fancy, dressed-up, candied confection. They're wildly popular in New Orleans and are made by pouring a cooked mixture of sugar, cream, and butter (or a caramel) over pecans and letting them cool. They're sweet, salty, and have a bit of a chew to them. Because of this, they have both a crunch and a melt-in-your-mouth quality. When added to vanilla ice cream, they bring sweetness, texture, and nutty notes.

Butter pecan ice cream, on the other hand, is simply a vanilla ice cream base that's dotted with pecans that have been toasted with rich butter, and typically other ingredients like brown sugar and vanilla extract. The pecans can be toasted in the oven or on the stove, so long as the other key ingredients are included. When mixed with ice cream, it gives a beautiful, crunchy texture as well as a rich, nutty-yet-buttery flavor

Pralines n' Cream is one of Baskin-Robbins' most popular flavors, and with good reason: They actually invented it (which we aren't shocked about, given that Baskin-Robbins is a premium ice cream brand). According to the story, co-founder Irv Baskin had been visiting New Orleans with his wife when the pair bought a bag of pralines as a souvenir. Once they got home, they decided to experiment a little bit and added some to a bowl of vanilla ice cream (along with a little bit of caramel — because why not?). One taste was all it took for a new flavor to be born. Originally, it was marketed as a Flavor of the Month back in 1970, but after customers started losing their minds whenever it wasn't available, the company decided to make it a staple.

While the classic version is a mix of chewy pralines and sweet caramel ribboned throughout a creamy vanilla base, there are tons of copycat flavors available today. For example, you may find brands that offer praline ice cream mixed with a butterscotch fudge swirl, others that include boozy bourbon for a little extra depth, and some that are dotted with a cinnamon streusel. Additionally, one brand has even swapped the vanilla base for a caramel ice cream (and we don't hate it). Use any of the above praline ice cream options to top some sweet spiced baked apples for a tasty dessert.

Unlike praline ice cream, butter pecan's origins are a little murkier. While we don't know exactly when it was invented, some reports have tied it to the Jim Crow era in the American South. As many family histories and individual experiences attest, at the time, Black people were not allowed to eat vanilla ice cream, and so gravitated towards using pecans, as they were abundant in Georgia and other Southern states. In 2020, two podcasters created the Butter Pecan Podcast to try to get to the bottom of this creamy mystery. Unfortunately, the results were mostly inconclusive during their research. What they do know, however, is that butter pecan ice cream is incredibly delicious (via Butter Pecan Podcast).

Unlike the many varieties of praline ice cream, butter pecan is mostly available exactly as is. This is, of course, mainly due to it being a classic — it was even one of the most popular ice cream flavors of the 1960s. And it's still just as loved today. In fact, it ranked in the top 10 of America's favorite ice cream flavors for 2024, according to the annual Ice Cream Data Report by Instacart.