Vanilla paste

[colleenmomof2]

I used Trader Joe's vanilla paste today for the first time and now wonder if I should have added a bit of liquid along with the paste. The baked goods and frosting aren't as "juicy" as normal. I used a lot of vanilla paste (2-3 tsp in each recipe) so I can imagine that adding something thick and dry would have had an impact. What do you do? Colleen

 

[karennoca]

I've never seen this product. What is it's intended use?

Why would you not use real vanilla instead of the paste?

 

[colleenmomof2]

Vanilla flavor with bean flecks

I bought this product because I thought that it might taste even better than regular vanilla and look nice, too. To the best of my knowledge, everything I made is yummy - can't say better, same or worse at this point. Although the instructions say substitute 1 paste to 1 liquid, I still wonder if a bit of extra liquid might be necessary.

"Vanilla paste is a sweet concentrated vanilla extract that has the vanilla bean seeds included in the mix."

The Trader Joe's ingredients are sugar, water, pure bourbon extract, ground vanilla beans and gum tragacanth. I couldn't get a link to Trader Joe's product but here is The Spice House paste. TJ's in my area was $4.99, not $10.99!

http://www.thespicehouse.com/spices/pure-vanilla-bean-paste-madagascar-bourbon-island

 

[michael-in-phoenix]

I remember another thread awhile back about TJ's Vanilla Paste. It wasn't very positive.

I tried to find it in the archives. I couldn't find it. Maybe it was on another board, but I remember the poster wasn't very impressed with the results.

Michael

 

[colleenmomof2]

I'm not unhappy with the product or the flavor

at this point. I just "feel" that 1-2 tsps of extra liquid might be helpful especially in the recipes where the liquid is minimal to begin with. The zucchini bread with all of the oil and eggs should end up wonderful once it sits for a couple of days to develop all of its flavors. But the frosting I made for the Texas brownies was a bit dry and the brownies were more crumbly than usual. Not bad - in fact, the flavors were exceptional (but honestly I haven't had a Texas brownie in a long time because I just can't eat one - yesterday was a good example!)

Michael, thanks for your comments. I searched the Swap too, because I remembered reading something good about vanilla paste! Colleen

 

[dawn_mo]

I had some from Trader Joe's when I first moved out here,

and I didn't have any problem with it, but I never used it in large quantities either. I bought something the other day that I thought was vanilla extract, but it was something called French Vanilla Blend. I have no idea what it is, but it smells okay.