Honest to Goodness

Honest To Goodness Organic Vanilla Beans Planifolia Grade A 2 pods

Name: Honest To Goodness Organic Vanilla Beans Planifolia Grade A 2 pods
Brand: Honest to Goodness
SKU: 9339944015506
Price: 11.5 AUD
Availability: InStock

$11.50

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Did you know Vanilla is the fruit of an orchid? The vanilla variety comes from the orchid’s name with the two most popular types of vanilla beans in the world being Planifolia Vanilla and Tahitensis Vanilla.

These vanilla bean pods are the planifolia kind, sometimes referred to as Bourbon vanilla beans. They are long and slender with a distinctive aroma, described as rich, fruity, sweet and buttery with hints of caramel. They have a thick and oily skin and an abundance of seeds.

Grade: Premium, Gourmet Quality Grade A
Average bean length: 15-18cm
Average weight per bean: 4 -6g

Storage: Store in an airtight container, in a cool dry place with low humidity and good ventilation and protect from light.

How to use

These vanilla beans are a great choice for a variety of cooking and baking projects and are especially popular to flavour ice cream, gelato, icing, chocolate, baked goods and especially combined with fruits due to their pronounced floral notes.

You can use the whole bean as is in some recipes, however it is often better to scrape out the seeds so they can easily disperse in what you are making. To do this, place the bean on a flat surface and cut the bean lengthways, open it up and scrape out the seeds that are loaded with flavour. You can also use the pod that is left to make vanilla sugar.

Growing and Processing

Did you know vanilla beans come from the pod of a tropical climbing orchid? These orchids are most often hand pollinated by dedicated vanilla farmers who tend to their prized crop. It can take 6-9 months from pollination to harvesting the beans, then it takes several more months for the beans to be cured and involves multiple steps, all done by hand!

Once harvested the beans are immersed in hot water to stop them from fermenting. Then they go through a "sunning & sweating" process for 7-28 days where the pods are put out in the sun during the day, then densely stacked together at night to sweat. This process activates the enzymes withing the pods which develop the vanilla flavour and in time turn the pods from green to deep brown. They are then put out in the sun to dry and packed away for several more months to allow the flavour to deepen.

From pollinating to harvesting, together with the lengthy curing process, each stage of vanilla bean production is done by hand making it one of the most labour intensive processes in food production and takes around 12 months, this is why it is so expensive.

You can add a whole vanilla bean to fruit during stewing for an incredible flavour or slit the bean open where you will find lots of tiny sticky seeds that you can blend through yoghurt or ice-cream or use to make a dessert.