Compare vanilla sugar and vanillin

Nat­ur­al vanil­la is an expen­sive prod­uct, because it is not mass-pro­duced due to the dif­fi­cul­ty of grow­ing orchid flow­ers, from which, in fact, this prod­uct is obtained. So an alter­na­tive appeared — vanil­la sug­ar and vanil­la. How do these fla­vors dif­fer from each oth­er and is it worth giv­ing pref­er­ence to some­thing one? Our experts have fig­ured this out.

Features of vanilla sugar

Vanil­la sug­ar is a mix­ture tra­di­tion­al­ly used in cook­ing to cre­ate all kinds of pas­tries. Often it is put in the base (cream, dough), fruit and berry com­potes, added to cof­fee, milk-based cock­tails, even used as a sprin­kle on fin­ished culi­nary prod­ucts.

It is cre­at­ed by mix­ing ordi­nary gran­u­lat­ed sug­ar or pow­dered sug­ar with arti­fi­cial vanillin or nat­ur­al vanil­la pods. Vanil­la sug­ar is pro­duced on an indus­tri­al scale in accor­dance with cer­tain GOST stan­dards. There are rare options when gran­u­lat­ed sug­ar is mixed in strict pro­por­tions with vanil­la bean pow­der.

Vanil­la sug­ar, if desired, can eas­i­ly be made at home. To do this, you need clas­sic gran­u­lat­ed sug­ar and a few vanil­la pods. There are 2 ways to make a prod­uct.

1. Method num­ber 1. Sug­ar must be poured into a glass jar with a tight-fit­ting lid. Then put a whole vanil­la pod in there. Be sure to use only one that has gone through a full fer­men­ta­tion (it will have an elas­tic struc­ture and a dark brown col­or, pos­si­bly even black). Close the jar with a lid and send it to a dark place for a cou­ple of weeks.

2. Method num­ber 2. Sug­ar must, as in the first case, be poured into a glass jar. Then take the vanil­la pods and, cut­ting length­wise, remove the seeds from them. Grind them thor­ough­ly, add to sug­ar. Fine­ly chop the peel and also add to the sug­ar. Close the lid tight­ly, leave in a dark place for sev­er­al days. With this method of man­u­fac­ture, strict pro­por­tions should be observed: for 1 kg of gran­u­lat­ed sug­ar, use 1 vanil­la pod.

Features of vanillin

Vanillin is made both from a nat­ur­al prod­uct and a syn­thet­ic method. Since the first option is quite expen­sive, an arti­fi­cial vanil­la sub­sti­tute is used in mass pro­duc­tion. It is note­wor­thy that in terms of the strength of the aro­ma and taste char­ac­ter­is­tics, it is not infe­ri­or to nat­ur­al.

One of the main advan­tages of arti­fi­cial vanillin over nat­ur­al vanillin is its cheap­ness, which made it pos­si­ble to launch mass pro­duc­tion for use in the bak­ery and con­fec­tionery indus­try, per­fumery and even tobac­co.

An ana­logue of nat­ur­al spice has a sharp­er taste with an admix­ture of bit­ter­ness and avail­able in sev­er­al vari­a­tions:

1. Crys­tals — the max­i­mum con­cen­tra­tion. The result­ing sub­stance retains its orig­i­nal aro­mat­ic and taste prop­er­ties for a very long time, with­out los­ing them even dur­ing heat treat­ment. Crys­talline vanillin has a pro­nounced taste, there­fore it is added only to pas­tries, in a strict­ly metered amount.

2. Pow­der — vanillin, mixed with pow­dered sug­ar in a cer­tain pro­por­tion — has a mod­er­ate­ly pro­nounced aro­mat­ic prop­er­ties.

3. Extract — in fact, it is vod­ka vanil­la tinc­ture. Vanillin in liq­uid form is usu­al­ly used in per­fumery or con­fec­tionery (for impreg­nat­ing cakes). It must not be heat treat­ed.

Similar features and differences

Both vanillin and vanil­la sug­ar are very sim­i­lar in their prop­er­ties and are used for the same pur­pos­es:

1. Giv­ing drinks a light vanil­la aro­ma and a more del­i­cate taste;

2. Strength­en­ing the aro­ma of ready-made dish­es or fla­vor­ing their indi­vid­ual ingre­di­ents;

3. Giv­ing con­fec­tionery prod­ucts a more pro­nounced taste and appe­tiz­ing aro­ma;

4. Stim­u­la­tion of endor­phin pro­duc­tion.

As for the dif­fer­ences, there are 2 main ones:

1. Aro­ma con­tent – ​​Vanillin is cer­tain­ly a high­ly con­cen­trat­ed fla­vor, while vanil­la sug­ar con­tains a small amount of aro­mat­ics;

2. Pro­duc­tion method — vanil­la sug­ar is made in a com­plete­ly nat­ur­al way, vanillin is syn­thet­ic (although, as men­tioned ear­li­er, it is pos­si­ble to cre­ate this fla­vor from vanil­la pods).

When and what is better to apply?

Since the taste qual­i­ties of the fla­vors in ques­tion are quite dif­fi­cult to dis­tin­guish (even for a pro­fes­sion­al), the choice of the appro­pri­ate option should be based on per­son­al pref­er­ences and the amount of sweet­ness in the final prod­uct.

For unsweet­ened con­fec­tionery prod­ucts, vanillin is more suit­able, since in this case it will not be the best option to achieve a pro­nounced aro­ma with vanil­la sug­ar. Vanillin is espe­cial­ly pop­u­lar as an addi­tive in var­i­ous drinks, includ­ing alco­holic ones (espe­cial­ly all kinds of liqueurs).

Vanil­la sug­ar is ide­al for con­fec­tionery prod­ucts that do not require bak­ing and cream. Per­fect­ly com­ple­ments the taste of bak­ing, if you add it to the base (for exam­ple, dough). A great option for adding a sub­tle taste to var­i­ous sauces, cere­als, cock­tails, casseroles.