Vanilla Sugar Uses: Toppings, Baking, Drinks and How to Make It

Vanilla sugar sweetens a little and flavors a lot. Because it is dry, it also goes where liquid vanilla extract cannot: onto the outside of a cookie, over a pie crust, around the rim of a glass. This page covers the uses that named recipes and makers document, with amounts only where a source gives them.

Check the label first. Dr. Oetker’s Bourbon vanilla sugar lists sugar, ground extracted vanilla pods and Bourbon vanilla extract;¹ its vanillin sugar lists sugar and vanillin flavoring;² and a Dr. Oetker vanilla sugar sold by a US grocer lists sugar and artificial flavor.³ Under US rules, “vanilla sugar” is an allowed name for vanilla powder made by blending ground vanilla beans or vanilla oleoresin with sugar.⁴ Any of them works in the uses below. Only the bean kind brings the dark specks.

At a glance

As a coating and topping

This is the use extract cannot match. America’s Test Kitchen suggests coating molasses or peanut butter cookie dough balls in vanilla sugar, and sprinkling it over pound cake batter or a pie crust before baking.⁶ The Wegmans listing for Dr. Oetker’s vanilla sugar likewise suggests sprinkling it on baked goods to add flavor and decorate.³ Extract is a liquid and would only wet the sugar it touched; that is kitchen judgment.

Vanillekipferl. Dr. Oetker’s recipe for classic Vanillekipferl, small crescent cookies made with ground hazelnuts and butter, mixes 120 g of powdered sugar with one packet of Bourbon vanilla sugar and turns the cookies in it while they are still warm, then leaves them to cool.⁵ The same recipe also puts two packets of vanillin sugar into the dough itself.⁵

Doughnuts, French toast, waffles. America’s Test Kitchen uses its vanilla sugar to coat sufganiyot.⁶ Using it the way you would use cinnamon sugar, over French toast, waffles or buttered toast, is common practice.

In baking, in place of some sugar and vanilla

A packet of vanilla sugar is mostly a flavoring. Dr. Oetker sells its Bourbon vanilla sugar in 8 g pouches and says one pouch is meant for a recipe using 500 g of flour, or for 500 ml of dessert or drink.⁷ USDA’s FoodData Central gives 4.2 g for a teaspoon of granulated sugar,⁸ so an 8 g packet is just under 2 teaspoons of sugar (our arithmetic). The sweetness in a cake still comes from the recipe’s own sugar.

In an American recipe that calls for both sugar and vanilla extract, you can swap some or all of the sugar for vanilla sugar, gram for gram, since sugar replaces sugar. Whether that also replaces the extract depends on how strong your vanilla sugar is, and no source we found publishes a conversion between vanilla sugar and extract. Method: swap the sugar, taste the batter or dough, and add extract only if the vanilla is faint. For the reverse swap, see vanilla sugar substitutes.

The alcohol question. US vanilla extract must contain at least 35% alcohol by volume.⁹ Not all of it bakes off: Idaho State University’s tabulation of USDA retention figures puts the alcohol left in a dish baked for 25 minutes without stirring at about 45%.¹⁰ Vanilla sugar made at home from beans and sugar contains no alcohol at all. Some commercial versions list vanilla extract among their ingredients,¹ so check the label if that matters to you.

In whipped cream, custards and ice cream

Dr. Oetker suggests its Bourbon vanilla sugar for whipped cream, fine pastries and cream fillings,¹ at one packet per 500 ml of dessert.⁷ Stirring it into cream before whipping, or into a custard or ice cream base in place of part of the sugar, is common practice.

A common claim says vanilla sugar was one of the earliest documented ways Americans flavored ice cream. We found no source for that. Thomas Jefferson’s well-known ice cream recipe flavored the cream by putting in a stick of vanilla, not vanilla sugar.¹¹

In coffee, tea and on fruit

America’s Test Kitchen suggests vanilla sugar for sweetening coffee or tea, tossing with fruit salad, and coating pears before roasting.⁶ Using it in place of plain sugar on oatmeal, yogurt or berries is common practice. Bean-based sugar leaves a few dark specks in a cup; vanillin sugar does not.

In syrups and cocktails

America’s Test Kitchen uses vanilla sugar to garnish the rim of a cocktail glass.⁶

For a vanilla simple syrup, dissolve vanilla sugar in an equal volume of hot water, the usual proportion for simple syrup. This is a Method starting point, not a tested recipe. Use it anywhere a drink calls for simple syrup, from iced coffee to a whiskey sour or daiquiri. If you want a clear syrup from bean-based sugar, strain out the specks through a coffee filter.

A widely repeated story says vanilla syrup made from vanilla sugar was a staple of 19th-century American soda fountains. We could not trace it to a source.

Making it at home

America’s Test Kitchen’s recipe, by Jessica Rudolph, uses 2 vanilla beans for 1 cup of sugar.⁶ Split the beans and scrape out the seeds, rub the seeds into 2 tablespoons of the sugar with your fingers until combined, then whisk in the rest.⁶ Put the sugar and the emptied pods in an airtight container and leave it at least 2 days for the flavors to meld; ATK says it can be stored for up to 1 month.⁶

That is a stronger ratio than a common claim that two beans make several cups. Using a weaker ratio is fine, but it is not a tested recipe. Burying used, dried vanilla pods from other recipes in a jar of sugar is a common way to stretch them; how much flavor they still give is not measured.

A note on sugar

Vanilla sugar is sugar, and it counts as added sugar. FDA’s Daily Value for added sugars is 50 grams a day on a 2,000-calorie diet.¹² See too much sugar if a dish has gone too sweet.

Not yet measured

• A conversion between a packet of vanilla sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla extract.
• How long homemade vanilla sugar keeps its aroma beyond ATK’s one-month storage guidance.
• How much flavor spent vanilla pods still give to sugar.

Related

• Vanilla sugar
• Vanilla sugar substitutes
• Vanilla
• Vanilla extract substitutes
• Vanilla powder vs. vanilla extract
• Too much vanilla
• Too much sugar