Vanilla paste: what is it and where is it used?

As well as tasting great, smelling intoxicating and making your desserts look even better, vanilla has other interesting properties. Among other things, vanilla is the queen of spices, making it the second most expensive spice after saffron. Vanilla comes in many different forms, but my favourite is in a paste.

Next to cinnamon, it is the most commonly used in desserts. It also affects our mood and can even help with fatigue and anxiety. Above all, it goes well with basic ingredients such as flour, eggs and milk. It is available in several forms, for example as sugar or extract. The use of vanilla pods or vanilla paste is also increasingly popular .

1. What is vanilla paste?

Vanilla paste will enchant you with its rich vanilla flavour, its intoxicating smell and its real aroma. BAM vanilla paste is a genuine bourbon vanilla concentrate from Madagascar and completely alcohol-free. Vanilla seeds are also added to the paste to make the dish look even more attractive.

I would like to share with you a few tips or interesting facts that I am sure you do not know.

"Good quality vanilla paste has black dots. If it doesn''t have that, it''s not good quality."

No, it is not. Vanilla paste is made from ground vanilla pods, so you can''t avoid black dots in vanilla paste. So every paste has black dots in it, and that only gives it recognition, not quality. It is the texture that gives the vanilla paste its quality, i.e. a quality vanilla paste is dense, and the declaration of such a paste contains a high percentage of vanilla. In addition to the texture, the country of production is also important. If the vanilla paste is labelled Madagascar, Bourbon, etc., you are dealing with a quality vanilla paste.

"Vanilla paste is a common artificial ingredient."

No, it is not. It''s the authentic bourbon vanilla concentrate, extracted from the vanilla bean pod, that gives it its intoxicating scent. But what makes it thick, and as such the most commonly used in desserts, is the water and thickener. If used improperly and incorrectly, vanilla paste can turn out as an ugly brown-orange flavouring.

2. Using vanilla paste

The use of vanilla paste has varied greatly throughout history. It first appeared on the plates of the American population. Well, more like in glasses, as it was used as an additive to milkshakes and other drinks, but it was only when it arrived on Spanish and European menus that its aromatic qualities proved to be the perfect binding agent for the ingredients needed to bake desserts.

Vanilla paste is usually used in the preparation of desserts when we want vanilla to be the queen of the recipe. So when we want a dessert to impress both in smell and appearance. This can also be achieved by scraping the vanilla pod, but this is time-consuming and more expensive.

Vanilla paste works best for custards. Add BAM vanilla paste to the BAM ice cream mix for an enviable bourbon vanilla ice cream.

For simple recipes, vanilla paste proves to be almost the main ingredient, making the flavours come together even more. When making dry mixes, I prefer to use vanilla sugar as the mix quickly becomes too runny.

It is also suitable for desserts in jars and is increasingly used in biscuits. In addition to your morning coffee, let the popular American biscuits brighten up your day, which you can make using the recipe here.

You can also use it in cake decorations. When you have a "naked " cake in front of you that needs decoration. You can also add a teaspoon or two (depending on the amount of topping) of vanilla paste to the white chocolate topping to enhance the white topping with black dots of vanilla paste.

3. What is the difference between vanilla paste, vanilla extract and vanilla pods?

Vanilla, the queen of spices, comes in many different forms. It can be found in vanilla paste, vanilla extract, the well-known vanilla pods, vanilla sugar and I am sure it could be found elsewhere. But what actually is the difference between the forms and when is it appropriate to use vanilla paste, when extract and when pods?

The vast majority of people think that the form itself has no particular influence on the actual preparation of the dessert, we just take what is to hand. However, this is not exactly the case. Vanilla paste works well as an addition to toppings, whipped cream, ice cream, pudding, while vanilla extract works best in chocolate desserts, hot chocolate and scrambled cakes. Vanilla extract is generally free of black specks and is therefore suitable for desserts where the vanilla scent is more important than the appearance.

The vanilla pod does follow the recommendations for the use of vanilla paste, as vanilla paste is one of the necessary ingredients for the production of vanilla paste. When using vanilla pods, build up the pulp carefully and above all: never ''sparge''. Scraping vanilla pods is time-consuming, but if you need a larger quantity, it can be quite expensive to use. Vanilla paste is an excellent substitute in this case. Use vanilla pods when you need a smaller quantity for a dessert.