Freedom!

Hey guys, it's been a while hasn't it? Well, guess what's happening?
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.

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.