Vanilla in baking and cooking
Vanilla's main flavor compound is vanillin, and it holds up in a hot oven, so cakes and cookies still taste of vanilla. The lighter, fragile aromas are what heat drives off. So custards and sauces get their extract at the end, off the heat.
Infuse, don't boil
To flavor milk or cream, split a vanilla pod lengthwise and scrape out the seeds. Put the seeds and pod into the milk, warm it until steaming, then cover and steep. A hard boil adds no flavor and can scorch the pan.
Test yourself
Questions from the interactive lesson, with the answer and the why.
A vanilla cake spends 30 minutes in a 180°C (350°F) oven and still tastes of vanilla. Why?
Vanillin holds up well at baking temperatures. Much of it stays intact, which is why baked goods keep their vanilla.
True or false: Baking destroys all of vanilla's flavor, so cake batter needs triple the extract.
False. Vanillin survives baking well, so tripling the extract would overpower the cake.
Fill the blank: The main flavor compound in vanilla is ___.
The main flavor compound in vanilla is vanillin. Vanillin is vanilla's signature compound.
What went wrong? You drop a split vanilla pod into milk and boil it hard for ten minutes. The milk scorches on the bottom.
A hard boil is not needed; steeping warm milk is enough. Gentle heat infuses vanilla, and boiling risks scorching the milk.
Your custard is cooked and off the heat. When does vanilla extract go in?
Stirred in now, once the custard is off the heat. Late addition keeps delicate vanilla aromas from cooking away.
True or false: Vanilla seeds scraped from a pod can flavor a dish, and the pod itself still has flavor to give.
True. The pod holds vanillin too, so it belongs in the infusion along with the seeds.