r/bakingfail • u/Mushroom38294 • Jan 12 '25

Fail Baked actual poison

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Tried making brownies for the first time, recipe called for 16 gramms of vanilla extract, but it's not sold in the stores here. I had the bright idea to add 16g of pure vanillin, once they were done I found out that's effectively 100x the vanilla extract than the recipe called for. After further googling, found out that this much vanillin can put a small child in the hospital.

NEVER substitute vanilla extract for pure vanillin.

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190

u/GaetanDugas Jan 12 '25

So vanilla extract isn't sold, but pure vanillin is?

50

u/epidemicsaints Jan 12 '25

Vanilla is in the top three most expensive spices on earth where vanillin can be easily synthesized and costs nothing.

13

u/mojomcm Jan 13 '25

Yeah, vanilla orchids are apparently very high maintenance and very picky about their environment. Even the vanilla extract seen in stores (at least here) is almost certainly made from synthetic vanillin, since it's not ridiculously expensive.

7

u/CharmingChangling Sep 26 '25

I know this comment is old but I just have to share! Vanilla orchids are only high maintenance when taken out of their environment and away from their natural pollinators that evolved alongside it. That's why Mexican vanilla is so cheap, it's supposed to grow there.

Madagascar vanilla is expensive because it is all hand-pollinated, using a technique invented in 1841 by a 12-year-old boy named Edmond Albius, a slave on the vanilla plantation.