John Myers
The vanilla pods I bought recently have a white coating on the outside in some places? Could that be mold? The MHD has not yet been reached. And what can I actually do with the scraped pods? It’s always too good for me to throw them away.
We do not assume that the white deposit is mold.
Sometimes vanilla pods have irregular white crystals, like a kind of “hoarfrost”. These are the finest sugar crystals that occur naturally through sweating out during fermentation. This even represents a quality feature of high-quality vanilla.
The best-before date plays only a minor role for vanilla beans, since they practically do not spoil. Fresh vanilla pods have a moist, oily appearance and bend easily. It is best to keep them in the glass tubes that you bought with them, as they close well.
After a long period of storage, they can become dry and hard and possibly lose some of their aroma. However, they can still be used.
When preparing a dessert, very hard vanilla beans can be steeped very well in the liquid (milk, cream, juice, milk alternatives, etc.) and heated at the same time. Depending on the dessert, they will be removed before serving, thickening or similar.
Scratched vanilla beans are great for making vanilla sugar. You can simply cut the sticks into pieces and put them in a clean container (e.g. a jam jar), fill them up with sugar, close them tightly and shake them from time to time. After about two weeks, the sugar has clearly taken on the vanilla aroma. In most cases, the aroma of the scraped pods is still so intense that you can top up with new sugar several times.
