From New Orleans to the Westside with Love, Ann’s Creole Candies is located in South Central Los Angeles, serving a family reciepe rooted in the culture of New Orleans.
Founded during Black History Month last year, Ann’s Creole Candies are celebrating one year in business selling pralines, or “pecan candy” as they are often called in Louisiana.
In the kitchen of a two-story home in New Orleans’ 7th Ward, a little girl named Ann showed interest in learning the family recipe for pecan candy.
Ann’s mother, Bernice Morney, would recruit her husband and their eleven children to pick fallen pecans from the backyard tree or the numerous pecan trees found in the neighborhood.
Ann’s Creole Candies was named in honor of my mother who taught me the painstaking process of making our family’s 100 year-old recipe for New Orleans Pecan Pralines. My wife Channing and I established the business in January 2020 but paused it before launching due to the pandemic. We officially launched on February 1, 2022.
Derek S Ann’s Creole Candies Founder
Making pralines is very labor intensive and far from easy to make.
The process requires standing over a stove for upwards of two hours with constant attention, flame control, and stirring. The window to a perfect or ruined batch occurs at the very end of this lengthy process.
Derek and his wife launched Ann’s Creole Candies online, and have remained pretty busy this last year fulfilling orders up to 650 pieces, thanks to the positive response.
I got the idea to start this business from my wife. We met in New Orleans when she was attending Dillard University but I don’t think that she had ever tried a New Orleans praline prior to the ones my mom made.
As they wrap up their first year of business, there is a lot for Ann’s Creole Candies to be proud of. They started out with tons of support from family and friends and have since expanded their reach shipping pralines to 59 cities in 18 states.
