Claire Saffitz

I don't know if it's good or not, but I think you can get a deal.

For me, it's always like the dairy heavy, the simple dairy heavy recipes, which almost always means custard.

So a vanilla ice cream, a flan, a panna cotta.

To me, dairy is a blank canvas.

You know, there's certain, like obviously we know that the flavors in vanilla are soluble in alcohol, but I just feel like they also really come through in dairy.

And maybe that's partly because there's some fat soluble in it.

flavor compounds or just by heating it, you know, it's infusing the dairy, but that like the way that vanilla bean and seeds infuse the flavor of dairy, like milk or cream is so special and so delicious.

So, and also you're really seeing the seeds when you're

When you're working with a custard of some kind.

So that's where I really use it.

I feel like in a cake recipe where you're adding starch, I would just go extract.

Because it's like you have other things that are kind of competing.

But the canvas of...

Just a creamy, delicious recipe is so perfect for vanilla.

And that's where I really want it.

And that's where I think you really experience the most intense and kind of like clearly articulated flavor from vanilla.

I think you cannot make a chocolate chip cookie without vanilla.

A ton of vanilla.

So somewhere along the way in my baking journey, and I don't remember when or where it came from, I learned the idea that to get butterscotch flavor of any kind, you have to combine, it's the combination of butter and sugar and vanilla.

And it's such an essential trifecta, these three things combined.