Evans Creole Candy Co

About

Hand made chocolates and pralines

Story

The Vieux Carre is iron laced balconies and narrow brick streets, wooden flower carts and horse drawn carriages. It is museums and monuments and mansions. But most importantly it is people. People proud of their city’s history and eager to preserve the honored traditions of its past.

An important part of that heritage is the famous Creole cuisine which produced such tasty delicacies as the praline, a crisp candy made by adding pecans to boiling sugar. A similar confection was made in France with almonds, but when the Louisiana colonists substituted pecans for the almonds and used brown sugar rather than refined sugar, they created an entirely new candy, a candy that is distinctively Southern in flavor and richness.

Over one hundred years ago, Andre Dulac-Evans began making pralines and other Creole candies. He had a few treasured recipes, a French Quarter kitchen well equipped with shiny copper utensils and a ready supply of fresh pecans and sugar cane from the nearby open-air market. Carefully and by hand he prepared the confections that soon became favorites throughout New Orleans.

In the year 1968, Evans Famous Creole Candies was acquired by an entrepreneur with a vision, a man that took the torch from Andre Dulac-Evans with a passion, his name was Jay Cuccia. His desire was to keep the tradition of the past alive and to enhance Evans product line, which he did by creating creamy and chewie pralines. He also added the delicate art of fine hand made, hand dipped chocolates, namely Cuccia Chocolates. From this point on, Evans Famous Creole Candies offered not only pralines Creole candies, but also fine chocolates with a Southern touch.

Today, because the Evans chefs zealously preserve Andre’s original recipes and methods, their old fashioned candies are becoming another of the Vieux Carre’s cherished traditions.