It’s official, despite the nation’s love affair with cooking, recent research conducted by Nielsen-Massey Vanillas has revealed that 2 in 5 adults do not know the difference between vanilla extract and vanilla essence. Granted, in some cases, mixing up the two, could be a slip of the tongue. However, even when prompted, most people found it difficult to explain the difference, which is odd, because the difference is very simple – one is real vanilla and the other is not!
Nielsen-Massey conducted this research to highlight that vanilla extract is made from real vanilla, extracted straight from the vanilla plant. In contrast, vanilla essence is in fact a synthetic artificial flavouring (mainly made with chemicals) – certainly not something that we’d want to mix into our cupcakes.
Nielsen-Massey Vanilla Extract is made from the finest Madagascan vanilla beans. The best beans are hand-picked, cured and put through a cold extraction process, which slowly and gently draws the vanilla from the bean, preserving the delicate flavour to create one of the finest pure vanilla extracts in the world.
So next time your recipe requires vanilla, make sure you choose the real thing, and choose the best to guarantee both quality and taste. Interestingly the brand pictured is the one I have in my cupboard; I just never considered the producer – Nielsen-Massey.
I have been searching for vanilla essence since it is listed as an ingredient in smoothies and baking cakes. In addition, it is listed in a reference book on food ingredients with a photo. (I own the three books it is listed in.) I’m not yet willing to accept that vanilla essence is not the real thing until I can speak to a pro in the industry, especially since it was listed as an ingredient to add with fresh fruit.
Vanilla essence comes in two forms.
1. Real seedpod *extract* is an extremely complicated mixture of several hundred different compounds, including acetaldehyde, acetic acid, furan-2-carbaldehyde, hexanoic acid, 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde, 2-methoxy-4-(prop-2-en-1-yl)phenol, methyl 3-phenylprop-2-enoate, and 2-methylpropanoic acid.
2. Synthetic *essence*, consisting basically of a solution of synthetic vanillin in ethanol, is derived from phenol. Phenol was first extracted from coal tar, but today is produced on a large scale (about 7 billion kg/year) using industrial processes. It is an important industrial commodity as a precursor to many materials and useful compounds.[4] Its major uses involve its conversion to plastics or related materials. Phenol and its chemical derivatives are key for building polycarbonates, epoxies, Bakelite, nylon, detergents and a large collection of drugs and herbicides.
I’d say that’s about as fake as it gets.