

Here are a few of my favorite recipes using vanilla paste: The flavor is bold and bright and all you have to do is to scoop out a teaspoon or less. We have vanilla paste recipes to die for! Think rich stuffed French Toast with vanilla ricotta filling, pound cake slices covered with fresh strawberries and whipped cream, very vanilla sugar cookies, and even home-churned vanilla ice cream. How do you use vanilla paste? In these vanilla paste recipes! I used freshly ground vanilla bean powder and vanilla extract so that the extract flavor would provide the top notes and the ground beans were the bottom notes. I used to layer vanilla flavors when I made my to live for Vanilla Madelaines. Bakers love it for baked goods that benefit from a bold vanilla flavor.Candy makers love it because it is concentrated flavor and doesn’t add much liquid.Chefs love vanilla paste for creme brulee and other custards because they don’t need to scrape vanilla beans and it has such a rich flavor that it carries well in the dessert.There is no sugar or corn syrup - just those three ingredients. The binder is xanthum gum, a natural product. Our vanilla paste is made with a triple strength vanilla extract (making it that much more flavorful) and freshly ground vanilla bean powder. In that case the powder is more for cosmetic purposes than for flavor. Some companies use freshly ground vanilla bean powder and some use the powder left over from the extraction process. Most pastes contain invert sugar or corn syrup that acts as a binder. It isn’t as thick as paste it’s more the consistency of liquid glue. I honestly don’t know whether this is true or not but I can say that the quality and usability of pastes varies from company to company.īasically, vanilla paste is a blend of concentrated vanilla extract and vanilla bean powder. Vanilla paste came out in the 1990s, allegedly invented by some friends of mine who claim that another company stole the idea from them. What was even weirder, some of the kids liked eating it! (I know, I’m going off-topic.)

We didn’t have Elmer’s glue - just this weird, thick stuff. The paste was in a big container and our teacher used a large spoon to plop it onto paper towels for us to use, usually when we were making greeting cards and wanted to paste on leaves, pictures or dried macaroni we had colored. My mental image when I first heard of it was of the blobs of white paste we were given in grade school. What exactly is vanilla paste?įor starters, the name isn’t really accurate – especially if you call it vanilla bean paste. So why do I think vanilla paste should be your new best friend and in your recipes?īecause vanilla paste is bright, bold and a big time saver! Hopefully I’ve caught your attention, because I suspect that once you try it you will agree. But how many recipes use vanilla paste? Hardly any (but we have them)! In fact, it’s still a “best kept secret” even though it’s quite popular with chefs and other food professionals. But should they? Introducing a best kept secret in the baking world – vanilla paste. Once they became a regular on the Network, everyone had to use vanilla beans in their baking and dessert making. Before the Food Network became so popular, most people had no clue about how to use vanilla beans. Once I knew how, I never stopped using them but I’ve expanded my vanilla repertoire considerably since then.
#Vanilla bean paste how to
It wasn’t until 1985 that I learned how to use vanilla beans in any other way. He told me to put it in my container of coffee beans and the vanilla would perfume the coffee. I was enchanted by the aroma but completely puzzled about how to use it. He and I were in a coffee and spice store and he bought me a vanilla bean.

I had a friend who had lived in Italy and traveled a great deal in Europe. This shouldn’t sound remarkable but it actually is because even finding a vanilla bean in San Francisco in 1967 took some effort.
#Vanilla bean paste plus
We’ll tell you, plus share with you our favorite vanilla paste recipes!
