Vanilla extract

“ The extract of the Tonka bean, however, is far inferior to that of the vanilla bean. It has a relatively penetrating, almost pungent odor, standing in sharp contrast to the flavor of the vanilla extract. This odor is so different that one who has given the matter some attention may readily distinguish the two, and the quality of the vanilla extract may often be judged with a fair degree of accuracy by means of the odor alone.
Another form of adulteration, and one that is now quite prevalent, is the use of artificial vanillin in place of the extract of either vanilla or Tonka beans. ”

“ Test another portion of the filtrate from the rosin for tannin with a solution of gelatin. Tannin is present in varying but small quantities. It should not be present in great excess.
To Detect Tonka In Vanilla Extract.—The following test depends on the chemical difference between coumarin and vanillin, the odorous principles of the two beans. Coumarin is the anhydride of coumaric acid, and on fusion with a caustic alkali yields acetic and salicylic acids, while vanillin is methyl protocatechin aldehyde, and when treated similarly yields protocatechuic acid. ”

“ They can be detected by their light color and brittleness. Most of the vanilla extracts sold for flavoring purposes are adulterated with Tonka beans and other adulterants, some containing not a particle of vanilla.
The following will make a splendid article, and you know what you are getting without paying high prices for weak extracts put up in deceptive little panel bottles. Dishonest manufacturers never yield a point in their efforts to defraud. ”

“ The vanilla is used merely to give permanence to the scent on the handkerchief, and this latter body is chosen in preference to extract of musk or ambergris, which would answer the same purpose of giving permanence to the more volatile ingredients; because the vanilla strikes the same key of the olfactory nerve as the orange-blossom, and thus no new idea of a different scent is brought about as the perfume dies off from the handkerchief. ”

“ Vanilla Ice Cream.—This favourite ice is easily made. It is needlessly expensive to use the vanilla pod itself. To flavour 1 pint custard a whole pod would have to be boiled in the milk. But, as the bright essence is often wanting in delicacy, and is not unfrequently merely an imitation of vanilla made from deleterious material, it is desirable to have a home-made extract. To make it, cut the pods into very small pieces, put them into a small bottle with 1 tablespoonful brandy to each pod; let them stand for a week or longer, shaking occasionally. ”

“ When it is in the freezer, however, stir it almost constantly until it begins to set; then stir in lightly a pint of cream, whipped. Stir it for two or three minutes longer, put it into a mold, and return it to a second relay of ice and salt. The powdered vanilla can be purchased at drug-stores or at confectioners’. It is much better than the extract for any purpose, and is used by all the best restaurateurs.
Delmonico Vanilla Cream.
Ingredients: One and a half pints of cream, one ounce of isinglass, one pound of sugar, yolks of eight eggs, half a pint of milk, vanilla powder. ”

“ In case the extract of Vanilla is used, add it just before pouring out on the slab.
VANILLA CARAMELS, No. 2.
Twelve pounds of Sugar, six quarts of good Cream, two Vanilla Beans, and one pound of sweet Butter; cook over a rapid fire to a good Crack; put the Sugar, two quarts of the cream and the beans on the fire; when it boils, add two quarts more of the cream; when it again reaches a boil, add the remaining two quarts; then, as it again comes to a boil, add two heaping spoons of cream of tartar.
MAPLE CARAMELS.
Use six pounds of A Sugar, six pounds of Maple Sugar, and six pounds of glucose ”

“ The distinctive odor and taste of vanilla are characteristic and cannot be mistaken. [8]
Lemon.—This extract is often made from tartaric or citric acid. They may be tested for as follows: to a portion of the extract in a test tube add an equal volume of water to precipitate the oil; filter, and add one or two drops of the filtrate to a test tube full of cold, clear limewater; if tartaric acid is present a precipitate will fall to the bottom of the tube. Filter off this precipitate (if present) and heat the contents of the tube ”

“ The profits to manufacturers and dealers on these household necessities are very large, and the prudent consumer will take advantage of the directions here given. Extracts of lemon and vanilla are most frequently used; nutmeg, mace, cinnamon, etc., are usually used dry by grating.
Best Lemon Extract.
Cut the peels of two lemons into fine pieces and add to the alcohol and oil of lemon. Let stand for a few days and filter through a felt bag or filtering paper. ”

“ VANILLA 1 pint of cream 1 pint of milk 1/2 pound of sugar 3 eggs 1/4 vanilla bean or a teaspoonful of good extract
Put the milk over the fire in a double boiler, and add the vanilla bean, split. Beat the yolks of the eggs and the sugar until light, add the whites beaten to a stiff froth, and stir into them the hot milk. Return the mixture to the double boiler and cook until it begins to thicken, or will coat a knife blade dipped into it. Take from the fire, strain through a colander, and, when cold, add the cream, and freeze. Repack and stand to ripen for three hours or longer. ”

“ Make one quart rich vanilla ice cream, and when partly frozen, add one pound of candied fruit, either cherries, currants or citron.
VANILLA ICE CREAM. From MRS. MARY C. HARRISON, of Wyoming, Lady Manager.
Three quarts sweet cream; one quart powdered sugar; one pint sweet milk (dissolve sugar in milk) ; two tablespoons extract vanilla. Pack with equal quantities of cracked ice and rock salt. Turn slowly and steadily. ”

“ Vanillin, like cocoa-red and theobromine,242 is formed by the splitting up of a glucoside by fermentative action. In some kinds of vanilla, piperonal, an aromatic body, which occurs in larger quantities in Heliotropium europaeum and peruvianum, has also been observed.
The commercial kinds of vanilla come from Mexico, Tahiti, Réunion, Mauritius, Mayotte, Seychelles, Ceylon and Java, which in 1891 produced respectively:
The best commercial kinds of vanilla come from Mexico, Bourbon, and Mauritius, and command a higher price than the other kinds. ”

“ Internally good fresh vanilla is so oily that it stains the fingers on being crushed and is filled with numerous shining seeds the size of a small pin’s head. These properties, together with the plump appearance and great weight, mark good qualities. Old vanilla, whose odor is fainter and less fragrant, may be recognized by its wrinkled surface, the absence of the white dust, the slight weight, and the bent ends of the capsules. Fraudulent dealers endeavor to give such old goods a fresher appearance by coating them with almond oil or Peru54 balsam. ”

“ Vanillin is much adulterated. Cumarin, the aromatic principle of the melitot (meliotus officinalis) and of tonquin beans etc.,245 can be prepared cheaply and it is fraudulently used in large or small quantity to imitate the vanillin aroma. A sample of vanillin bought in Switzerland was found by Hefelmann154 to contain 26 percent of antifebrin. The American “vanilla crystals” consist of a mixture of vanillin and antifebrin, or vanillin, cumarin and benzoic acid; latterly that article is stated to consist only of cumarin, antifebrin and sugar. ”

“ After fermentation the pods are carefully dried, tied in small bundles and made ready for market or export. They will keep indefinitely and the high prices secured for very small bulk renders them an attractive crop to handle.
The vanilla of commerce is not only used to flavor chocolate, sweetmeats and liquors, but also enters into the composition of many perfumes, owing to an aromatic alkaloid that exudes from and crystallizes on the outer coating of the best quality beans. These under normal conditions are worth from $12 to $16 per pound. ”

“ Flavoring extracts have been called an American specialty; for while they are used considerably by foreign cooks and bakers, ours are much more addicted to their use. The most popular of all the flavoring extracts is vanilla; its home is Mexico, and we take nearly all the vanilla beans harvested there; but that does not cover the demand. Many firms get rich by making [545] imitation vanilla and other flavors. Some of these are strong medicines. The safest place to eat vanilla ice cream is at home where you know it is made of the deliciously fragrant bean and not of coal tar products. ”

“ The vanilla of commerce occurs in the form of fleshy, flexible, stick-like pods, 3 to 8 inches long, and 3/10 to 4/10 of an inch wide, of a compressed cylindrical form, attenuated and hooked at the stalk end. The surface is finely furrowed lengthwise, shining, unctuous, and often beset with an efflorescence of minute colourless crystals. The pod splits lengthwise into two unequal valves, revealing a multitude of minute, shining, hard, black seeds of lenticular form, imbedded in a viscid aromatic juice.
The finest vanilla is the Mexican. ”

“ Vanillin, the odoriferous principle of the vanilla bean, is an aldehyde which was first artificially prepared by Tiemann and Haarmann in 1874 by oxidizing coniferin, a glucoside contained in the sap of various coniferæ, but it now appears to be usually manufactured from eugenol, a phenol contained in oil of cloves. Piperonal, an aldehyde closely allied to vanillin, is used in perfumery under the name of heliotropin and is prepared from oil of sassafras and oil of camphor. ”

“ Valer. Ammon.) , Ammoniated Tincture of Valerian, U.S.P.—Valerian (20%) in aromatic spirit of ammonia. Absolute alcohol content about 64 per cent.
Dosage: 2 Cc. or 30 minims (U.S.P.) .
Vanilla (Vanilla) , Vanilla, N.F. (Vanilla Bean) .—Cured fruit.
Action and Uses: Flavoring.
Tinctura Vanillae (Tr. Vanill.) , Tincture of Vanilla, N.F.—Vanilla, sugar and diluted alcohol. Absolute alcohol content about 40 per cent.
Vanillinum (Vanillin.) , Vanillin, U.S.P.—The odorous principle of vanilla, sometimes prepared synthetically. ”

“ VIOLET PARFAIT—This is made the same as white parfait, using one-third cup of grape juice instead of the boiling water, and adding half a cup of grape juice and the juice of half a lemon to the cream before beating.
VANILLA PARFAIT—Cook a half cup each sugar and water over the fire until it threads. Do not stir after the sugar has dissolved. Beat the whites of three eggs until very stiff, pour the sirup slowly over it, beating constantly. Flavor with vanilla, and when cold fold in a pint of cream whipped stiff. Pour into a mold and pack. ”

“ They are succeeded by long slender pods, containing numerous seeds imbedded in a thick oily balsamic pulp. The seeds, which are highly esteemed, are used for flavouring chocolate and other purposes. Monkeys are very fond of them, and pick all they find, so that few are left on the wild plants for man’s use. Vanilla is, however, cultivated in Mexico and other parts of the world. The Indians also collected copal. It is a gum which exudes from a lofty leguminous tree, having a bark like that of the oak. ”

“ The vanilla plant is a parasitic evergreen creeper, indigenous to Vera Cruz, Tabasco, and Oajaca. Its aromatic flavor and perfume were known to the Aztecs, who used it in their chocolate. Little care is required in its cultivation, it only being necessary to suppress hardier creepers around it. The pods which constitute the vanilla of commerce are first dried in the sun, then sweated in woollen cloths, and again dried. [60] Humboldt estimated the annual average export of the article through Vera Cruz at $60,000, since which time its production has increased fivefold. ”

“ Lots of them actually use a substitute for sugar and hardly any of them use vanilla bean, or real lemon, or genuine fruit extracts for their flavoring. It all is made of synthetic preparations that counterfeit the real flavors and are so much cheaper. ”

“ Nine thousand years is a long time to remember things of that kind, though I don't think the scheme was a very hard one to work. For vanilla cream, it only required a well with plain soda-water in it with a quart of vanilla beans and three pints of cream poured into it four times a week; same way with other flavors—a quart of strawberries for strawberry, sarsaparilla for sarsaparilla, and so forth; but the secret was in the pouring; there was something in the way papa did the pouring; I never [126] knew just what it was. He always insisted on doing the pouring himself. ”

“ A few drops of vanilla or lemon juice, a little grated cocoanut or chocolate, or some pounded almonds, make excellent flavorings. Part of it can be colored pink with cochineal, or green with spinach-coloring.
[Pg 312] When this is done, stone some dates, French plums, or raisins, or blanch some almonds and slit them in two, or have ready a number of the dried walnuts which can be bought at any grocer's. Only the perfect halves must be used. Form some of the cream into little balls and put it between two walnut halves or two almond halves, or stuff the other fruit with it. ”

“ Its specific gravity at 15° C. is 0.936-0.940; refractive index at 20° C., 1.4812-1.4835; and boiling point about 210°-212° C. It is optically inactive, and readily soluble in 1.5 volumes of 70 per cent. alcohol.
Vanillin, a white crystalline solid, melting at 80°-82° C. and prepared by the oxidation of isoeugenol. It has a strong characteristic odour, and occurs, associated with traces of benzoic acid and heliotropin, in the vanilla bean. It can only be used in small quantity in light-coloured soaps, as it quickly tends to darken the colour of the soap. ”