The Importance of Vanilla

How important is vanilla extract? Does the obligatory 1 teaspoon in so many cakes or cookies really make a difference?

The notion that vanilla may be unnecessary struck the test kitchen's bakers as almost sacrilegious! Their first thought: Positively you need the vanilla! But after they'd calmed down, we realized we’d never actually tested the matter. So we baked test kitchen recipes for yellow cake, brownies, and chocolate chip cookies both with and without the vanilla. Tasters easily picked out the cake that had no vanilla—it was “bland” and “eggy.” However, to our surprise, the competing flavor of chocolate in the brownies and cookies made the use of vanilla extract somewhat less clear-cut. Some tasters found the cookies and brownies acceptable with or without vanilla. Others, though, instantly identified the cookies with vanilla—praising them as “caramelized,” “nutty,” and “toasty”—as well as the brownies with vanilla, which they said had a rounder chocolate flavor.

THE BOTTOM LINE Even if vanilla isn’t the primary flavor, for most people its presence in baked goods accentuates toasty and caramelized notes and rounds out the other flavors. Take advantage.