Name: Vanilla Sugar
Ingredients: 1 ounce vanilla beans; 1 pint granulated sugar; 1 tablespoon vanilla sugar per quart of cream

Why it works: Vanilla and beans match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,293 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Vanilla Sugar

Ingredients

1 ounce vanilla beans
1 pint granulated sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla sugar per quart of cream

Directions

Prepare the vanilla

Cut the vanilla beans into small pieces.
Mix the pieces with the granulated sugar.
Pound in a mortar until it resembles flour.
Sift through a fine sieve.
Pound any remaining mixture.
Sift again until fine.

Store

Cut the beans.
Split the beans to expose the seeds.
Place the beans in a small jar with the granulated sugar.
Seal the jar tightly.
Sift the sugar as needed.
Add more sugar to the jar.
Keep the jar corked.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Vanilla + beanstop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,293 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Vanilla + creamtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together12,301 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Beans + creamtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,341 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Vanilla beans: Provide the vanilla flavor and aroma that infuse into the sugar.
Granulated sugar: Carries the vanilla flavor and absorbs its aromatic oils as it is stored.