Nielsen-massey vanillas: flavour at their very essence

Dedicated to crafting the world’s finest flavours, Nielsen-Massey Vanillas’ expertise is more than 100 years in the making and, once you’ve used their incredible extracts in your baking and cooking, you won’t dream of using anything else.

Whether creating true-taste extracts or amazing flavour-packed pastes, Nielsen-Massey aims for excellence, batch after batch, time after time. That’s why it’s the brand of choice for cooks, pastry chefs, ice cream makers and home bakers all around the world, and why we’ve gladly given Nielsen-Massey’s products space on our shelves for well over a decade.

A few drops of these magic ingredients will give your recipes a leg up that your taste buds will really appreciate and, as Nielsen-Massey’s extracts are all-natural, allergen-free, GMO-free, kosher, gluten-free and BRC-certified, everyone can enjoy the benefit. A world apart from their supermarket counterparts, the quality and flavour completely justifies the price; after all, you don’t ever set out to bake an ‘average’ cake, so why would you compromise and use ‘average’ ingredients?

A century of fantastic flavours

A family firm, Nielsen-Massey has been perfecting their products since 1907 – including their famous vanilla extract – and understand that this bean tastes best when its natural essence is allowed to shine. There are over 300 different flavour components to vanilla beans, and to ensure they’re protected from the damaging effects of heat or pressure, each batch undergoes a proprietary cold-extraction process to preserve these flavour components and produce a rounded vanilla profile with a sweet, creamy taste. It’s this attention to detail and pursuit of quality that sets Nielsen-Massey apart.

“Our century-long promise has and always will be to provide you with the world’s most alluring and complex flavours…”

Scrupulously selected beans

Sticklers for quality, Nielsen-Massey only uses beans from the finest growing regions: Madagascar, Mexico, Tahiti, Uganda, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia; examining their vanilla bean-by-bean to ensure each meets their sky-high standards. As with wine, chocolate and coffee, vanilla from each country has its own distinctive flavour due to the varying climates, soils and bean species. Nielsen-Massey showcases these unique characteristics in origin-specific products, such as its Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla Extract, and always with success. This expertise extends to every other flavour in the range too, so whether you need a drop of citrus extract for your lemon meringue recipe or a splash of rose water in your gin-based cocktail, you’ll know you’ve chosen the very best.

The genuine article

So why would you buy Nielsen-Massey food flavours when you could get a ‘cheaper’ bottle of essence from the supermarket? Good question. There’s actually a world (make that a universe!) of difference. Both can be used to add flavour, but where vanilla extracts are made using real vanilla pods and beans, vanilla essence is, more often than not, much weaker and completely synthetic. The same goes for other flavours, like orange and almond, too – extracts always use real ingredients.

Even the best imitators can’t hold a candle to the authentic flavours you get with extracts and pastes – and you’d have to use loads of essence when just a drop of the genuine article will give cakes, biscuits, ice creams, desserts and even savoury dishes an authentic true-to-life flavour. The real deal might cost you a few pence more, but the flavours are guaranteed to go so much further.

A full-on flavour fest

For a flavour selection that extends much further than vanilla, stock your cupboard with Nielsen-Massey’s all-natural extracts and add an intense depth to a whole host of recipes.

• Coffee Extract – made from top-notch Italian and Brazilian beans, a drop or two will lend a mellow flavour that works brilliantly with chocolate and vanilla.
• Vibrant and zingy, Nielsen-Massey’s Lemon Paste and Lemon Extract contain oil drawn from the finest Californian fruits to add a citrus punch to dressings, ice lollies, cakes and cocktails.
• Just a dash of Chocolate Extract, made with the very best cocoa beans, will give your dishes deep, complex flavours, and it’ll make desserts that much more chocolatey too.
• Orange Blossom Water brings the delicate perfume of an orange grove to sweet and savoury recipes, while Orange Extract gives a perkier, more traditional orange flavour.
• Created with mint grown under the strictest quality standards, the Peppermint Extract complements strong flavours like chocolate, and is an absolute got-to-have for mint choc chip ice cream.
• Sweet, fragrant and fabulously floral, Rose Water is distilled from the purest petals for a luxurious addition to Middle Eastern cuisine, rice pudding, baklava and cocktails.
• Authentically nutty, Nielsen-Massey’s pure, concentrated, full-bodied Almond Extract is a baker’s staple that’s perfect for fruit pastries and Bakewell tarts.
• Delivering the best results when it comes to flavour and quality, Nielsen-Massey is perhaps most famous for Vanilla Extract. Sweet, creamy and mellow with velvety after-tones, some (including us!) would argue that it’s simply unbeatable, but the Vanilla Bean Paste comes an incredibly close second, with the vanilla pod seeds ensuring your home-made creations have gourmet-style flecking.

Cook a flavourful feast

Nielsen-Massey’s all-natural extracts are in a league of their own when it comes to depth and intensity of flavour, but it might surprise you that their use isn’t strictly limited to cakes. How does creamy Vanilla Ice Cream sound? Fancy nibbling on a slice of No-Bake, Gluten-Free Hazelnut-Cocoa Tart with your morning coffee, or seeing the day out with an Arancione Negroni cocktail in hand? Nielsen-Massey has kindly contributed some fantastic recipes that will inspire you to use extracts in the most delicious ways. 

Tempted? Try Nielsen-Massey’s Madagascan Pure Vanilla Extract in our delicious Berry Almond Tart recipe and we’re convinced you’ll be a convert. And we absolutely insist you pair it with a gorgeously sweet swirl of Vanilla Pastry Cream. Yum!

When it comes to these fab ingredients, Nielsen-Massey doesn’t skimp on flavour or quality, but sustainability and provenance are equally as important, and you can find out more about their efforts here.