Vanilla bean and fragrant lemon zest give this buttery shortbread an incredible aroma. Once you've used the seeds, add the vanilla pod to a jar of granulated sugar to make gourmet vanilla sugar.
Mittens or festive cookie cutters give these vanilla-flavoured cookies a touch of whimsy. Decorate them with the Cookie Glaze, if you like. A good substitute for a vanilla bean is 1 tsp (5 mL) vanilla.
A vanilla bean gives the best flavour by far to pouring custard, or crème anglaise. But you can stir 2 tsp (10 mL) vanilla into the cooled custard instead.
This simple batter yields delicious cupcakes – better than any store-bought mix and well worth the extra minute or two it takes to measure the ingredients. Vanilla seeds add the luxurious flavour of real vanilla.
A vanilla bean infuses this strawberry jam with intriguing flavour and aroma.
Two sources of vanilla give these cookies a deep and complex vanilla taste. Put the scraped bean pods into your sugar canister to add flavourful notes to granulated sugar.
A smooth alternative to dessert, you can jazz up this fireside favourite — depending on your taste and what you have on hand — with one of our kicky variations. If you don't have a vanilla bean, add 1 tsp (5 mL) vanilla to the cooled eggnog instead. If you like, sprinkle with 1 tsp (5 mL) grated nutmeg instead of the chocolate.
This classic New York-style cheesecake gets an update with vanilla and strawberries. Choose small uniform-size berries.
Bakers of all stripes want this classic in their collection – as well as their freezer. A true pound cake relies on beating each egg thoroughly since there's no baking powder. This is a good time to use imitation vanilla extract, because there is less flavour evaporation than with pure vanilla extract.
The classics never go out of style – and vanilla is still the most popular flavour of ice cream in North America.
