The cured seed pod of a Mexican climbing orchid, slowly fermented and dried until fragrant with vanillin. Hand-pollinated and labour-intensive, it is the second most expensive spice after saffron.
What it is¶
Vanilla is the fruit of a climbing orchid, Vanilla planifolia, which scrambles up trees and supports in tropical forests. Its green, bean-like pods are picked unripe and have almost no scent. The flavour develops only through curing, a process that takes months: the pods are blanched in hot water or otherwise killed, "sweated" in blankets or boxes to ferment gently, dried in the sun by day and wrapped at night, and finally conditioned in closed boxes. During curing, enzymes release vanillin and many other compounds.
The finished pod is dark brown, supple and oily, filled with thousands of tiny black seeds, the specks in good vanilla ice cream. Three species are grown: V. planifolia (sold as Bourbon, Madagascan or Mexican vanilla), Tahitian vanilla (V. × tahitensis), which is more floral and fruity, and the minor V. pompona.
Origins and history¶
Vanilla is native to Mexico and Central America. The Totonac people of the Gulf coast, around present-day Veracruz, are credited with its early cultivation, and the Aztecs used it to flavour xocolatl, their chocolate drink. Spanish conquerors brought it to Europe in the sixteenth century, at first mainly as a flavouring for chocolate.
For three centuries vanilla could not be grown successfully outside Mexico: the plant flowered but set no fruit, because its natural pollinators, thought to be certain bees, were absent. In 1841 Edmond Albius, a twelve-year-old enslaved boy on the French island of Réunion (then Île Bourbon), devised a quick method of hand-pollinating the flowers with a sliver of bamboo and his thumb. His technique, still used today, made vanilla a plantation crop across the Indian Ocean, which is why Madagascan vanilla is called "Bourbon".
Synthetic vanillin, first made in the 1870s and now produced from petrochemicals or wood pulp, supplies nearly all the world's vanilla flavour. Natural vanilla prices have swung wildly, with sharp spikes after cyclones in Madagascar.
Flavour and aroma¶
Vanillin gives the familiar sweet, creamy core, but real vanilla has hundreds of other compounds that add floral, woody, smoky, dried-fruit and rum-like notes. Madagascan Bourbon vanilla is rich and creamy; Mexican is often spicier and woodier; Tahitian is floral and cherry-like, with less vanillin. That complexity is lost in synthetic vanillin, which is why real vanilla matters most in custards, ice creams and other simple, uncooked or gently cooked dishes, and least in baked goods, where heat drives off many of the subtler compounds.
In the kitchen¶
To use a pod, split it lengthways with the tip of a sharp knife and scrape out the seeds with the back of the blade. Add both seeds and pod to milk or cream and infuse gently, then remove the pod. One pod flavours about 500 ml milk or cream: enough for a crème anglaise or custard for six.
- Custards and creams. Crème anglaise, crème pâtissière, crème brûlée, panna cotta, ice cream.
- Baking. Cakes, biscuits and meringues, usually with extract: 1–2 tsp per cake.
- Fruit. Poached pears, roasted peaches or rhubarb, fruit compotes.
- Drinks. Hot chocolate, coffee and some cocktails.
- Savoury. A little vanilla works with seafood, especially lobster and scallops in a butter sauce, and with pork, duck or roast squash.
Extract, paste and sugar¶
Vanilla extract is pods steeped in alcohol; in the United States, standards require at least 35% alcohol and a minimum weight of beans per volume. "Vanilla flavouring" or "essence" is usually synthetic vanillin. Vanilla paste is seeds and extract thickened with sugar or gum, a convenient substitute for pods: 1 tsp paste for one pod. Bury a used, dried pod in a jar of caster sugar to make vanilla sugar.
Buying and storing¶
Keep pods tightly wrapped in an airtight jar or tube, in a cool, dark cupboard. They keep for a year or more. Do not refrigerate: they dry out and can go mouldy. Good pods are plump, glossy, supple and strongly fragrant; dry, brittle pods are old. A white, crystalline "frost" on the pod (givre) is vanillin crystallising out and a good sign; fuzzy grey-green growth is mould. Rinse and dry used pods to reuse in sugar or extracts.
Substitutes¶
Use 1 tsp good extract or paste for one pod. Maple syrup, bourbon or dark rum can stand in for vanilla's warmth in baking. Tonka bean has a vanilla-almond scent and is used by some chefs, but see the safety note on coumarin.
Pairs well with¶
Cream, eggs, butter, chocolate, coffee, cinnamon, cardamom, saffron, nutmeg, star anise, rum, strawberries, peaches, pears, rhubarb, apples, lobster, scallops.
Health and safety¶
⚠️ Cheap Mexican vanilla and coumarin
Very cheap "vanilla extract" sold in some markets, notably to tourists in Mexico and the Caribbean, has been found to contain coumarin, extracted from tonka beans, to imitate vanilla's aroma. Coumarin can cause liver damage in large or repeated doses and is banned as a food additive in the United States; the US Food and Drug Administration has warned consumers about such products. Buy vanilla from reputable sources. See coumarin-in-cinnamon and spice-adulteration.
Did you know¶
📌 Why vanilla is so expensive
Each vanilla flower opens for only a single day and must be pollinated by hand that morning. The pods then take eight or nine months to mature on the vine and several more months to cure, and they are valuable enough that growers in Madagascar sometimes brand their pods with a pattern of pinpricks to deter theft.