Vanillin in chocolate

[annachan]

I always thought Vanillin was a cheap alternative to vanilla extract and shouldn't be found in high end artisan chocolate. I was shocked to see it listed as an ingredient over and over again at some really, really expensive chocolate I just got. I am so unhappy about it. Am I over reacting? Is Vanillin as bad as I think it is?

[Edward J]

Lindt uses it in some of their couvertures, but not all. The big one, Callebaut uses it in some of theirs, all couvertures with the letters "NV" on the packaging use natural vanilla, those that don't have it on the packaging, use vanillin.

Vanillin was discovered by German scientists in the late 1890's I believe. A "Natural identical" substance, that is usually derived from wood chips. China is now the largest mnfctr of vanillin.

Not much vanilla/ vanillin is in chocolate. If you read the ingredient list, "Soy lecethin"is added in amounts of under 1/2 of 1% (0.5%) and vanilla is usually the next igredient after it.

[annachan]

I understand that it is used in some chocolates. I just don't get how someone can use Vanillin in the chocolate when natural vanilla can be used, and sell the chocolate (just bars/blocks of plain chocolate) for more than $45/lb!

[Deus Mortus]

I use a simple rule in these things, if I can't taste it in a blind test, I'm fine with it. So buy some good chocolate with real vanilla in it, get a blindfold and get someone to give you the pieces of chocolate without telling you which is which. If you can taste the difference use the chocolate you have in a sauce or something else that naturally overpowers the subtle notes of chocolate and never buy it again.

And about the anger, well if you get angry each time someone tries to sell a crappy product for a lot more money then it's worth, you should probably invest in a pacemaker.

[Mjx]

Vanillin doesn't seem 'bad', as such, just... cheap. It seems strange to find it in an upmarket product; I would expect anything containing vanillin to be priced accordingly. Even if the difference can't be tasted (and this isn't consistently so, at least in my case), if I'm going to give my wallet a kick in the teeth, I want it to be justified.

[dougal]

I understand that it is used in some chocolates. I just don't get how someone can use Vanillin in the chocolate when natural vanilla can be used, and sell the chocolate (just bars/blocks of plain chocolate) for more than $45/lb!

Is it possible that one reason could be control and consistency.

The 'natural' (grown) product will have (to some extent) variable concentrations of active ingredient, from different producers and over time.

Using the principal ingredient on its own should allow exact control of the amount added.

If it is 'nature identical' then that is what it is. But what it would lack would be the natural impurities in the natural product, which might make a discernible flavour difference where the vanilla flavour is prominent. But its going to be pretty insignificant when you are using so little as to avoid a detectable 'that's vanilla!' flavour.

[annachan]

I did taste the chocolates before I found out there were vanillin in it. My first impression was that I wasn't impressed. Maybe the vanillin didn't pay much of a role in terms of the flavor at all, maybe it's just not very good chocolates. It just doesn't make sense to me that some of the products actually cost more than the ones at La Maison du Chocolat!

[ChrisZ]

I always thought Vanillin was a cheap alternative to vanilla extract and shouldn't be found in high end artisan chocolate. I was shocked to see it listed as an ingredient over and over again at some really, really expensive chocolate I just got. I am so unhappy about it. Am I over reacting? Is Vanillin as bad as I think it is?

I do think you're overreacting a bit. Firstly, vanillin itself is found in natural vanilla and is the dominant 'vanilla flavour'. Whether it's made synthetically or extracted from vanilla beans it's still the same chemical. The difference between 'natural' vanilla and vanillin is not the chemical itself - but a 'natural' vanilla extract also has other chemicals in it too which supplement the flavour, however subtly. A suitable analogy may be the difference between table salt and a sea salt - in both cases the salt is identical (NaCl) but the sea salt will have minuscule amounts of other minerals in there too.

Blind taste tests have shown that vanillin is indistinguishable from 'natural' vanilla extract, no matter how much this may horrify gourmands or embarrass the chefs who took part in the tests...

I have previously recommended the Pralus tasting pyramid to people interested in artisanal chocolate. It's a selection of 10 single-origin chocolates which have the same recipe (proportions of cocoa/cocoa butter/sugar) but each bar uses beans from a different plantation. It's amazing how different they are. Everything about the bars is the same except where the beans have come from, but one bar will give you a burst of rich red berries, the next will be nutty, the next will be smoky and so on.

The huge variation in flavour comes from the beans alone, everything else is identical. There are so many variables in chocolate that determine the taste and quality that the tiny proportion of vanillin will not make any difference at all.