Out of curiosity, is there any flavour that neutralizes or balances out with vanilla?
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2In what? How would this be used?– Catija ♦Jul 12, 2016 at 21:22
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I had candies in mind. I personally don't like a strong vanilla flavor in chocolate based candies and caramels. this could be used if you accidentally put in too much for your own flavor ideas or you used a new brand and didn't check to see it's strength etc.– Nir GlazerJul 12, 2016 at 21:27
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1Maybe I've not seen the same recipes you have but the chocolate candy recipes I see don't generally call for vanilla at all. Seems like you're trying to solve a hypothetical that can be easily avoided.– Catija ♦Jul 12, 2016 at 21:33
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I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it seems to be looking for flavor pairings, which is off topic.– Catija ♦Jul 14, 2016 at 19:13
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1@Catija Maybe take that to meta? While flavor pairing ("what tastes good with X?") is generally off-topic, I believe we've taken a decent number of "how do I cover up this taste?" questions in the past. So I don't think this question is an obvious application of that off-topic policy.– Cascabel ♦Jul 14, 2016 at 19:28
2 Answers
I think it depends on how much is too much vanilla. If your recipe called for a teaspoon of vanilla and you added a tablespoon, it probably won't be too big a deal. I often use more vanilla than is called for in recipes.
If you are looking for something to "balance" the flavor a little bit, you could maybe try salt or lemon juice/extract.
If you just prefer that vanilla not be the dominant flavor, there are plenty of things that go nicely with vanilla that would result in a more complex flavor. Personally, I love combining vanilla with the flavors of fruit or almonds.
OK, so I bought some Vanilla Porter beer that was WAY too strong. I took a couple of tbs of the beer added about 1/3 rd tsp of unsweetened baking chocolate, microwaved it to get it hot so I could mix them, and it did the trick. It cut the vanila way back and didn't really add much choc flavor at all.