Tonka beans make for a surprising, unusual alternative to vanilla in home-made ice cream, custard and soufflé. Typically, a few beans suffice to flavour one kg of these desserts.
Tonka Bean - the fruit of a South American tree with a single seed that is dried and used to make bitters or as a substitute for vanilla. Also used in potpourris and sachets.
Top - to place one food item or mixture on top of another.
Tonka bean Northern South America (Guyana, Orinoco region). Main producers today are Venezuela and also Nigeria. Tonka beans smell of vanilla with strong hints of cinnamon, cloves and almonds.
This is almost surely not made from vanilla beans but from tonka beans (or some combination thereof); tonka beans contain coumarin, a moderately toxic compound used medically as a blood thinner but banned as a food additive.
by the Aztecs and is native to the New World; the intensely fragrant bean from a variety of orchid native to Mexico; used to flavor desserts, ice cream and beverages; do not purchase the inexpensive imitations which are made from the tonka bean ...
Substances called "vanilla flavour" don't contain vanilla at all, being synthesized from eugenol (clove oil), waste paper pulp, coal tar or ‘coumarin', found in the tonka bean, whose use is forbidden in several countries.
 See also: Bean, Fruit, Oil, Vanilla, Sauce
|
