Vanilla extract substitutes, and which one for which bake
Vanilla bean paste and imitation vanilla replace vanilla extract 1:1. Maple syrup, bourbon or dark rum work in the same amount, and almond extract at half.
Every option, and when to use it
Which one works depends on what the ingredient is doing in the recipe, so here is the full list, with where each one fails.
| Use | How much | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Vanilla bean paste | 1:1 | anything, and custard, ice cream and frosting, where the seeds show Watch out: it is made from extract, so it carries alcohol unless the label says otherwise |
| Imitation vanilla | 1:1 | cookies, cakes, brownies and anything else baked Watch out: in uncooked desserts, taste tests have gone both ways |
| A whole vanilla bean | 1 bean per 1 tbsp of extract, so a third of a bean per tsp | custard, ice cream and poached fruit Watch out: it needs splitting and scraping, and only the seeds go in |
| Vanilla powder | 1:1 for Nielsen-Massey's; brands vary, so check the label | dry mixes, shortbread, and dusting over fruit or yogurt Watch out: it disperses unevenly in wet mixtures unless it goes in with the dry ingredients |
| Maple syrup | 1:1 | pancakes, waffles, French toast, banana bread and oatmeal Watch out: about 4 g of sugar a teaspoon, which disappears in a batch |
| Bourbon, dark rum or brandy | 1:1, or up to double for more flavour | brownies, chocolate cake, apple cake and pecan pie Watch out: in frosting or whipped cream it tastes of the spirit, and none of the alcohol cooks off |
| Almond extract | half the amount | cherry, plum, apricot and nut bakes, and sugar cookies Watch out: a different, much stronger flavour |
| Honey | 1:1, or up to 1 tbsp per tsp | muffins, quick breads and granola Watch out: a tablespoon adds about 17 g of sugar, and honey's own taste |
| Vanilla syrup | 1:1 | cakes and cookies, in a pinch Watch out: mostly sugar, and it can make a bake a little stickier |
| Vanilla milk or plant milk | in place of the recipe's milk | pancakes, cakes and custards made with milk Watch out: the vanilla is faint |
| Cinnamon, nutmeg or ginger | 1/2 to 1 tsp per tsp | spice cake, apple, pumpkin and carrot bakes Watch out: it tastes of the spice, not of vanilla |
| Leave it out | nothing | chocolate, coffee and spice bakes Watch out: a vanilla cake or a plain sugar cookie tastes of little else, so there you will miss it |
In anything baked, the swap barely matters. Blind taste tests have found tasters unable to tell imitation vanilla from real once it has been through the oven, so imitation, paste, a spirit or maple syrup all do the job in cookies and cakes. Where vanilla is the main flavour and nothing is cooked off, as in custard, ice cream or frosting, the choice shows more.
Which one for which bake
| You are making | Use | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Cookies, cakes, brownies, muffins | Imitation vanilla, or bourbon or dark rum, 1:1 | Once baked, blind tasters could not tell imitation from real |
| Custard, ice cream, whipped cream, frosting | Vanilla bean paste 1:1, or a scraped bean | Little or no heat, so a spirit stays a spirit, and tests split on imitation here |
| Pancakes, waffles, French toast, banana bread, oatmeal | Maple syrup, 1:1 | Its flavour belongs there, and the sugar disappears in the batch |
| Chocolate, coffee or spice bakes | Bourbon or dark rum 1:1, or leave it out | The stronger flavours carry the bake |
| Cherry, plum, apricot or nut bakes | Almond extract, half the amount | Almond suits them, and it is much stronger than vanilla |
| Anything, if you avoid alcohol | A bean, vanilla powder, alcohol-free vanilla or maple syrup | See the alcohol section below |
Is imitation vanilla the same as vanilla extract?
No, but in baking it might as well be. Vanilla extract is vanilla beans soaked in alcohol and water, and it carries hundreds of flavour compounds. Imitation vanilla is mostly one of them, vanillin, made largely from guaiacol, a petroleum by-product (America’s Test Kitchen). Vanillin made in a lab is the same molecule as vanillin from the orchid.
The oven narrows the gap. Heat drives off much of real vanilla’s complexity and leaves the vanillin, and imitation carries more of it: America’s Test Kitchen’s lab found 15 times as much on average (America’s Test Kitchen). So in blind tests of baked goods, tasters could not pick the real thing, or preferred the imitation: Serious Eats in sugar cookies and a cooked ice cream base, Epicurious in sugar cookies, and America’s Test Kitchen in cake and cookies.
Uncooked desserts are where results split. America’s Test Kitchen’s panel once preferred a budget imitation in pudding and frosting, and in another test preferred real vanilla over a clear imitation in pudding. Tasting Table’s tasters preferred real vanilla in whipped cream. If you have paste or a bean, custard, ice cream and whipped cream are where to spend it.
Vanilla beans, paste and powder
Nielsen-Massey, which makes all three, gives one equivalence: 1 tablespoon of extract equals 1 whole vanilla bean, 1 tablespoon of paste or 1 tablespoon of powder (Nielsen-Massey). So a teaspoon of extract is about a third of a bean.
- A bean. Split it lengthwise and scrape out the seeds, which is what goes in. One bean does the work of a tablespoon of extract.
- Paste is a thicker form of extract, usually thickened with gum tragacanth, with the seeds in it (Nigella Lawson). It swaps 1:1, and since it is made from extract, it carries alcohol unless the label says otherwise.
- Powder is the one to check. Under US rules it is ground vanilla bean blended with sugar, starch or similar (21 CFR 169.179), and strengths vary: Nielsen-Massey’s swaps 1:1, while Martha Stewart’s kitchen uses half as much. It disperses unevenly in wet mixtures, so America’s Test Kitchen adds it with the dry ingredients.
Does vanilla extract have alcohol?
Yes, and more than most people expect. In the US, vanilla extract must be at least 35% alcohol by volume (21 CFR 169.175); with less, the label has to say vanilla flavoring instead. USDA puts a teaspoon at about 1.4 g of alcohol, nearly as much as a teaspoon of 80-proof rum at 1.5 g. Most of a teaspoon’s 12 calories are the alcohol.
Baking drives most of it off, but not all. USDA measured how much alcohol stays in a dish when it is stirred in and cooked (USDA Table of Nutrient Retention Factors):
| Cooked for | Alcohol left | From 1 tsp of vanilla extract |
|---|---|---|
| Not heated, stored overnight | 70% | about 1 g |
| 15 minutes | 40% | about 0.6 g |
| 30 minutes | 35% | about 0.5 g |
| 1 hour | 25% | about 0.4 g |
| 2 hours | 10% | about 0.1 g |
So a teaspoon of vanilla in a cake baked for 30 minutes leaves about 0.5 g of alcohol in the whole cake, around 0.04 g a slice if you cut it into 12. A US standard drink is 14 g (NIAAA). In frosting, whipped cream or anything else that is not cooked, the alcohol stays.
If you avoid alcohol
However small the trace, these carry none, or say so on the label:
- A whole bean, or vanilla powder, which under US rules is ground bean with sugar or starch. Brands differ, so read the label all the same.
- Alcohol-free vanilla. In the US it is sold as vanilla flavoring, the legal name for anything under 35% alcohol (21 CFR 169.177), and flavoring can still contain some, so look for the words alcohol-free.
- Imitation vanilla without alcohol. USDA lists both kinds, and the label says which you have.
- Maple syrup, in the same amount.
Paste usually does contain alcohol, since it is made from extract. And in Britain, several supermarket extracts are made on a sugar syrup instead, which the next section covers. Whether a trace is acceptable is a question for your own practice, not for a recipe page. What a recipe page can do is say what is in the bottle.
Is vanilla essence the same as vanilla extract?
Not usually, and in Britain the difference is worth knowing. Vanilla extract is made from vanilla pods. Vanilla essence is usually a cheaper flavouring: Tesco’s Ms Molly essence lists water, propylene glycol, caramelised sugar syrup and flavouring, with no vanilla pod, and Morrisons’ vanilla flavouring the same four. Nigella Lawson’s site describes essence as usually synthetic, and warns that the words vary between countries (Nigella Lawson).
For swapping, treat essence like imitation vanilla: 1:1, and in baking the difference is small, for the reasons above. Everything on this page works in place of essence too.
British extracts differ in another way. Several are made on a sugar syrup rather than alcohol: Dr. Oetker’s evaporates the alcohol and says the bottle may still contain up to 0.5%. Nielsen-Massey’s is made with alcohol, as an American extract is. If alcohol matters to you, the ingredients list tells you which kind you have.
What a teaspoon of each carries
None of these moves a recipe’s macros in any way you would notice. Per teaspoon, by USDA figures:
| Per teaspoon | kcal | Carbs | Alcohol |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vanilla extract | 12 | 0.5 g | 1.4 g |
| Imitation vanilla, with alcohol | 10 | 0.1 g | 1.4 g |
| Imitation vanilla, alcohol-free | 2 | 0.6 g | 0 |
| Maple syrup | 17 | 4.5 g | 0 |
| Honey | 21 | 5.8 g | 0 |
| Bourbon or rum, 80 proof | 11 | 0 | 1.5 g |
Two lines are worth reading. Honey and maple syrup add 4 to 6 g of carbohydrate a teaspoon, nearly all of it sugar, which vanishes in a cake and only adds up if you use honey by the tablespoon, at about 17 g. And the spirits carry as much alcohol as the extract they replace, so swapping in bourbon does not make a bake any less boozy.
Dishes to make next
- Cottage cheese cheesecake that still tastes like cheesecakeA baked cheesecake with 2 teaspoons of vanilla, where paste swaps in 1:1 and shows its seeds.
- Healthy sweet potato casserole, and where the sugar really isA teaspoon of vanilla with the cinnamon in the mash, where bourbon or maple syrup does the same job.
- High protein pancakes that still taste like pancakesPancakes with a teaspoon of vanilla in the batter, which the same amount of maple syrup replaces.
Common questions
Vanilla bean paste or imitation vanilla, in the same amount, are the closest. With no vanilla of any kind, use maple syrup, bourbon or dark rum in the same amount, or almond extract at half for a different flavour. In cookies and cakes, blind taste tests have found imitation vanilla as good as real once it is baked.
The bake rises and sets exactly the same, because a teaspoon of vanilla is flavour, not structure. It just tastes plainer. You will notice in a vanilla cake or a plain sugar cookie, and much less in anything with chocolate, coffee or spice.
Yes, in the same amount, or up to a tablespoon per teaspoon of vanilla, as Martha Stewart's kitchen does. It brings honey's own flavour and some sugar: about 6 g a teaspoon and 17 g a tablespoon, by USDA figures. Across a whole cake, that is very little.
Yes. In the US it must be at least 35% alcohol by volume, and a teaspoon carries about 1.4 g of alcohol, nearly as much as a teaspoon of rum. Baking drives off most of it but not all: USDA measured about a third left after 30 minutes, which comes to around 0.04 g a slice in a cake cut into 12.
No, but in baking it does the same job. Imitation vanilla is vanillin, the main flavour compound in vanilla, made mostly from guaiacol, a by-product of petroleum. Real extract has hundreds of flavour compounds, and the oven drives off many of them. In blind tests of cookies and cakes, tasters at Serious Eats, America's Test Kitchen and Epicurious could not tell the two apart, or preferred the imitation.
Not usually. In Britain, vanilla extract is made from vanilla pods, while vanilla essence is usually a cheaper flavouring: the supermarket essences we checked list water, propylene glycol, flavouring and caramel. It swaps 1:1 for extract, and in baking the difference is small.