Vanilla extract is an evocative flavoring; adding depth to everything from chocolate chip cookies to carrot cake. It's complex, transportive, and anyt

Vanilla Extract vs. Imitation Vanilla: Does It Matter What You Buy?

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2024-09-24 12:30:10

Vanilla extract is an evocative flavoring; adding depth to everything from chocolate chip cookies to carrot cake. It's complex, transportive, and anything but boring.

When we last reviewed vanilla we paid up to $6.19 an ounce for a pure extract and down to $0.12 an ounce for an imitation extract. We’re paying more for everything at the supermarket right now. Is extract worth the cost or will imitation do?

“Real” vanilla is made from vanilla beans that have been soaked in alcohol to create vanilla extract (we also have a recipe for homemade vanilla extract). That skinny, glossy, dark brown vanilla bean is the cured seed pod of an orchid. In order to produce seed pods outside of their native Mexico, the orchids must be individually hand-pollinated (the one kind of tiny bee that travels down the plants' narrow blooms to pollinate them doesn't exist elsewhere).

Eighty percent of the world’s vanilla comes from Madagascar, off the southeastern coast of Africa. In 2017, Cyclone Enawo wiped out 30 percent of the crop. Prices skyrocketed. They’ve since leveled off—not that it feels that way.