Claim to Fame: Anyone who has ever tried my baking knows I adore flavor combos. A good old classic and vanilla is nice, but how about a basil and tomato cupcake with cornmeal? Or a peach mango beauty made with fresh fruit? Sound delish? It is. To me, baking is about finding a wonderful combination of flavors that make your mouth scream "OH MY WORD!!"
I do what I can to get as many fresh and natural flavors into my baking. I use real vanilla beans. My freezer is full of frozen fruit I purchased in the summer and cleaned, cut, and bagged myself. But no matter how hard you try, sometimes it's just not possible to get fresh, all natural flavors you're looking for without spending an arm and a leg. Sadly.
That's where LorAnn Gourmet flavorings come in. These little bottles pack quite the punch in flavoring, and promise me 4 times the flavoring of regular extracts. That's a hefty promise, but I decided to put it to the test. I wanted to make a raspberry orange cake, and while fresh oranges are a dime a dozen right now, raspberries are not. Time to try out my new flavoring.
Price $ ($0-$10): The price for these are amazing, one package is $3.49. At first that seems a little pricey considering, if dared, I could swallow the contents of this with one try. But then you think how much you'll be able to bake with just this tiny bit of flavoring, and suddenly the $3.49 seems like a steal. Extracts usually run $4-8, and you need to use a lot more to achieve the same flavoring. If nothing else, the savings will eventually make it worth the investment (if they taste ok).
Testing it Out: As I said, I wanted to bake an orange raspberry cake, pictures to come soon. I had the orange flavoring no problem, but decided to bust out the LorAnn Gourmet raspberry flavoring for this project. I do appreciate that they add very little artificial coloring to their mix: yes, it's tinted red, but you use so little of it you can't even tell. Helps for those of us who love to make funky colored cakes and cookies.
Using was easy, no different than adding vanilla extract. I used 1/4 tsp of the extract, and after I mixed it into the batter, it was time to bake.
The Results: I was a little disappointed in the final taste. Maybe I'm too picky, but it definitely felt like this extract was made for candy flavoring, not baking. Yes, I realize it says on the package it's made for candy flavoring, but it also says it's perfect for baking. Ehhhhhhh....not so much...it definitely tasted like raspberry, but the raspberry taste was off. It was, to be honest, a little fake tasting. Kind of like it was made for a lollipop. Haha. I guess that should have been obvious for me when I bought it, but I was expecting more of a natural flavoring than what I got.
It wasn't bad. It just wasn't what I was looking for.
Final Verdict: If you're looking for a cheap option for flavoring, and like the lollipop type of flavorings, this stuff is made for you. It's well-priced, easy to use, and definitely gives you a pop of flavor. For me, and my more natural preferences, I am probably going to keep looking for an alternative.
Rating: *** out of ***** Again, in the right situation, these are probably amazing products. I just find it a little misleading that the packaging suggests it's the perfect tool to use for baking. It's not, at least not in my opinion.
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