I go through a LOT of vanilla extract in my line of work. In another lifetime, I worked in restaurants and bakeries throughout the U.S. and Mexico, and set up food stalls in Hiroshima. These days, I work as a food writer and cookbook author — I’ve developed hundreds of recipes for a variety of websites, like Bon Appétit, Food 52, and Epicurious, and licensed cookbooks, including My Pokémon Baking Book and White Lotus: The Official Cookbook. I’ve lost track of how many bottles of vanilla I’ve gone through as I try to perfect recipes for Pikachu Cupcakes and an endless array of other bakes inspired by various pop-culture IP.
Why did I just make you read a truncated version of my CV? So when I tell you that I have a favorite vanilla extract, you know that I know what I’m talking about. I first discovered Sonoma Syrup Co. about four years ago when I was taste-testing vanillas for a gourmet food magazine.
I (and my panel of taste testers) loved it so much that I always keep bottles of it around and gift it to friends around the holidays. It’s a beautiful bottle with a pretty label. Plus the vanilla extract inside is good enough to make a great gift to the bakers in my life.
Credit: Jarrett Melendez
What’s So Great About Sonoma Syrup Co.’s Organic Pure Vanilla Bean Extract “Crush”?
It is beyond fragrant. We’re talking “walk by the pantry, pause, open the bottle, take a deep breath in, long breath out, smile, continue to pause, close the bottle, carry on” fragrant. Maybe I’m the only one who does that, but I recommend it. Take that 10 seconds to pause and take in that deep vanilla fragrance, think about the orchid that produced it, the folks that harvested, dried, cured, extracted, and bottled it. Vanilla is amazing, and this is particularly good vanilla.
Sonoma Syrup Co. uses both Madagascar and Tahitian vanilla to make this extract, which means you get the best of both worlds: those rich, dried fruit notes of Madagascar vanilla, and the bright, floral notes of Tahitian vanilla. This extract gets the name “Crush” because they use crushed vanilla bean seed pods in the process, which means each bottle is swimming with vanilla bean seeds. It smells good, it tastes good, and yes, I am writing this with a bottle nearby so I can keep smelling it.
Credit: Jarrett Melendez
What’s the Best Way to Enjoy Sonoma Syrup Co.’s Organic Pure Vanilla Bean Extract “Crush”?
It would be easy to say that you should use this for every recipe that calls for vanilla — you can and should — but I recommend using this in recipes where vanilla is supposed to be the star.
Credit: Jarrett Melendez
It’s great in baked recipes, like shortbread and sugar cookies and cakes (we’re talking angel food cake, sponge cake, pound cake, etc). For the original taste test I did with this vanilla, I made a really basic sugar cookie, and my tasters almost unanimously favored the one made with Crush.
Credit: Jarrett Melendez
But this vanilla extract really shines in more raw or cold applications, recipes where the vanilla is added at the end of the cooking process, or recipes with no cooking at all. Think ice cream, pudding, crème pâtissière, buttercream frosting, and whipped cream. I also like to add a little splash, just a tiny bit, to morning yogurt with a little bit of honey.
Buy: Sonoma Syrup Co.’s Organic Pure Vanilla Bean Extract “Crush”, $44.95 for 8 ounces at Amazon
What grocery staple do you refuse to bake without? Tell us about it in the comments below.
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