Question
Trudy Haines
When is vanilla powder a better choice than vanilla extract? How is white vanilla made?
Answer
So vanilla powder and vanilla extract, um, can be used very similarly. In fact, there's usually a one-to-one ratio in each one of those. Um, basically the way that the vanilla powder is made is it's just the vanilla seeds scraped out, dried out, and it has that brownness to it. And the vanilla extract is held in an alcohol. So if you're doing something in a high, uh, heat environment, um, the vanilla extract will actually, um, lose the flavor a little quicker than the powder would. Um, and white vanilla is actually completely different. It's, uh, from a chemical called, I think it's called vanilla or vanilla, something like that. Um, but it is not actually a vanilla because vanilla bean is brown. Um, and you can't get like that white or that clear, you know, extract basically. So it's a chemical that tastes very, um, very, very similar to vanilla and that's usually used in something like, uh, if you're doing baking like a white frosting or a white cake where you don't want the brown to be able to change the color of the thing that you're looking at, um, they can also be, you know, used just interchangeably as well where you can use the vanilla, the white vanilla versus the vanilla extract at the same time. Um, so those are uh, basically kind of a little bit of a breakdown for each one of those. So, um, vanilla powder, you know, great and high heat items as well, um, when the alcohol might, uh, you know, bake off using the extract as well.
