I'm on holidays now, which can only mean one thing... more posts! :D
As promised, this first one is a science-y post on vanilla!
Doesn’t the name alone sound seductive
already? When added to a dessert, it imparts its own characteristic flavour,
aroma and makes it all the more appealing.
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| www.wikipedia.org |
Vanilla can be purchased in a variety of
forms: as a whole bean containing the dotted black seeds, a paste, in extract form or an
essence.
What’s the difference between vanilla
extract and vanilla essence?
In most cases, vanilla extract is what you
get when you take a vanilla bean and extract the flavour and aroma compounds by
alcohol and other organic solvents, on the other hand vanilla essence is made
using a synthetic form of a substance called ‘vanillin’ and is often heavily
diluted with water.
Vanillin is a natural compound that is
largely responsible for the aroma of vanilla, but there are also many other
compounds in vanilla that also make up the smell and taste.
In one of the experiments my lab group
conducted, we analysed the composition of vanilla extract, vanilla essence and
pure vanillin. We found that vanilla extract had superior aroma and a smaller
amount of water, compared to vanilla essence which had a weaker aroma and was
almost completely composed of water!
Basically, vanilla essence is synthetic and
mostly water while vanilla extract is made from real vanilla.
Luckily, most labelling of vanilla products
will say ‘artificial’ if is it made synthetically. Just make sure you read the
labels and understand what you are buying!
Hope you found this post informative and useful!
S.
