A look at Vanilla, history, uses, & storage

Vanilla is the delicate bean that lends its warm flavor to cool custard treats, soft spongy cakes and steaming coffee confections. This bean has a notable history and has long been recognized as a fundamental flavor.

The History of Vanilla Beans

Vanilla has a romantic and dramatic history that began thousands of years ago. These beans were prisoners of a war that raged among the Totonaco Indians and the Aztecs. Later when Spaniard Hernando Cortez defeated the Aztecs, the beans became his booty. Combined with cacao, the beans made a royal beverage that would be sipped by the sophisticated and enjoyed in various forms.

Today these beans are produced in several places. The island of Madagascar, located off the east coast of Africa is considered the largest producer of vanilla beans and is famed for having the sweetest beans that are distinctly creamy and smooth. Other places vanilla beans are produced include Mexico, Tahiti and Indonesia. Indonesia’s vanilla is noted for its woody essence, while the Mexican beans are described as spicy in nature. Tahitian beans are opposite the spicy variety and are said to have a fruity, flowery flavor.

What Does a Vanilla Bean Look Like?

If you haven’t baked with vanilla beans, you may be wondering what they look like. Prepared vanilla beans are dark brown, slender and pleated. They are approximately eight inches long, tough in texture, and contain thousands of black seeds.

Using Vanilla Beans in Your Recipes

Vanilla beans can be combined with other ingredients to make rich sauces and tasty treats. Hardened beans can be softened in liquid and then retrieved for use. Both the pod and the beans are useful for flavoring your favorite recipes.

How to Choose a Vanilla Bean

A good vanilla bean will be both plump and dark (almost black in color). The skin should be thin and will yield an abundance of seeds. A quick pinch will help you select the best textured beans.

How to Store Vanilla Beans

Vanilla beans are simple to store and can be kept in a tightly closed container. Used beans can be recycled and reused if rinsed and thoroughly dried. When refrigerated, these beans should last up to six months. Other forms of vanilla can be stored for long-term use as well. Pure vanilla extract, an alternative to the vanilla bean, can be stored indefinitely on your kitchen shelf. Vanilla powder, however, should be stored away from heat and light, and kept in a cool dry place.

Vanilla beans, though expensive, are well worth the cost, as imitation vanilla can contain harsh chemicals and inferior flavor.

Can I use vanilla extract instead of vanilla beans?

Of course. Many cooks and especially many cookbook writers want you to slit open a vanilla Bean and scrape out the seeds and add them (and often the bean, as well) to the dish you're making (plucking out the pod at the end). Many discerning palates find this produces a richer, fuller flavor than adding vanilla extract. It's also exponentially more expensive, and many average-Joe palates can't tell the difference.

In fact, the devil-may-care folks at Cooks Illustrated recently shocked much of the food world with the heresy that you might as well use imitation vanilla extract in your cooking as the more expensive pure vanilla extract. They argued that vanilla constitutes such a teensy part of your finished dish — and based on extensive taste tests by their super-discerning palates — that there was no appreciable difference in flavor.

Now, people who are concerned that imitation vanilla is generally made from chemically treated by-products of the paper-making industry may still have a slight inclination towards natural vanilla extract. Vanilla extract is made by soaking chopped up vanilla beans in a solution containing at least 35% alcohol, after which the solution is aged for several months. But in terms of flavor, if you can use imitation vanilla in place of real vanilla extract, you should at least feel fine about using real vanilla extract instead of vanilla beans.

Simply add a teaspoon or two of extract in place of the vanilla bean. If you are concerned that your recipe is particularly delicate and the addition of an extra teaspoonful of liquid will cause it to fail, decrease another low-flavor liquid in the recipe by the same amount.