Use the good vanilla. Tonight counts.

Estate Grown Madagascar Vanilla Beans

Name: Estate Grown Madagascar Vanilla Beans
Brand: Frantoio Grove
SKU: FG-VAN-JR
Price: 15.00 USD
Availability: InStock

Price

$15.00

Description

Long, supple Madagascar vanilla beans, deeply aromatic and rich in vanillin. Split one into custard, panna cotta, poached fruit or your favorite baking recipe, then tuck the spent pod into sugar to give it a second life.

Sourced through longtime spice importer Buddy Born.

3 beans

Why This One

These beans come from Madagascar through our longtime friend Buddy Born. Producing vanilla is extraordinarily hands-on: the flowers are pollinated by hand, and the harvested beans then go through a lengthy curing process that develops the aroma we recognize as vanilla.

By the time a good vanilla bean reaches your kitchen, an enormous amount of human attention has gone into something that looks remarkably simple.

That’s part of the pleasure of using one. Split the pod, scrape out the seeds and suddenly you are much closer to the ingredient than you are when you pour a teaspoon from a bottle.

Tasting Notes

Deep, rich and unmistakably vanilla, with the fuller and more complex spice character you get from working with the whole bean.

Split one open and the difference is physical as much as aromatic: a good bean is supple and oily rather than dry and brittle, with a seam of tiny black seeds waiting inside.

Ingredients

100% Madagascar vanilla beans.

How to Use

Whole vanilla asks for a little more intention than vanilla extract, but not necessarily a more complicated recipe.

Split the bean lengthwise and scrape out the seeds. For custards and other dairy-based desserts, infuse the pod in the warm milk or cream and use the seeds in the mixture. Don’t throw the pod away afterward—there’s still plenty of aroma left in it.

Start with crème brûlée or pots de crème: simple desserts where there isn’t much for good vanilla to hide behind.

And don’t save the beans indefinitely because tonight doesn’t feel important enough. Cracking open a whole bean is one small way of deciding to make this one a little more special.

Recipe Ideas

Vanilla Bean Crème Brûlée

Vanilla Bean Pots de Crème