How to make your own cream soda at home

If you have to attend an in-person meeting that has you nervous, let me share my secret: Dab a bit of vanilla perfume or pure vanilla extract on the insides of your wrists just before you enter the meeting.

Soon, everyone in the room will be thinking about cookies or their grandmothers, though they likely won’t realize why. Based on my experience, this works best with men, whose faces and demeanors soften in the presence of the evocative scent.

Vanilla also is calming and has been used at such medical facilities as Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York City to help claustrophobic patients get through an MRI and similar procedures.

If you love vanilla, you will have noticed how its price has soared in the last eight to 10 years. Like certain other foods from the tropics, such as black peppercorns, prices for vanilla beans fluctuate. In the early 2000s, prices fell so low that a lot of farmers burned their fields of vanilla orchids and planted more lucrative crops. And then, once the supply dwindled, prices soared. They are still high today.

One of the best sources of information about all things vanilla is Patricia Rain of Santa Cruz, also known as the Vanilla Queen. Once a resident of Sonoma County, she has traveled extensively to wherever vanilla is produced and has worked directly with farmers to learn all she can and to help them receive a fair price for their crops.

Her website, vanillaqueen.com, is full of information and includes an online store. She has extracts, powders and books. Rain has written three books about vanilla. The most recent, “Vanilla: The Cultural History of the World’s Favorite Flavor and Fragrance,” is essential for anyone who loves vanilla. It explores such questions as how did this unique orchard, with its long seed pod that must be fermented and dried for its powerful aromas to emerge, become so popular?

I have always loved vanilla and have never understood how it came to be used pejoratively, to indicate something mild, bland and boring.

It is rare that I recommend balsamic vinegar, as it has been overused for years now. Yet it has specific qualities that make it the ideal acid for a vanilla vinaigrette. Traditional balsamic vinegar has natural vanilla flavors from the wooden casks it ages in for more than a decade. “Industrial” balsamic vinegar, which includes virtually everything on our market shelves, has vanilla flavor as one of many ingredients.

This dressing is outstanding with salads that include protein, such as those people following Keto diets eat. For specific recommendations, see the suggested uses that follow the main recipe. If you want a rich dressing, add the cream; if you want something leaner and brighter, omit it.

Creamy Vanilla Vinaigrette

Makes about ⅔ cup

1 small shallot, minced

1 garlic clove, crushed and minced

Kosher salt

3 tablespoons good-quality balsamic vinegar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract or vanilla puree

Sugar, honey or maple syrup, as needed

Black pepper in a mill

½ cup extra-virgin olive oil, late harvest if available

2 tablespoons cream, optional

Put the shallot and garlic in a small bowl, sprinkle with salt and add the vinegar. Stir and set aside for 20 minutes.

To finish the vinaigrette, stir in the vanilla extract or puree. Taste the mixture and if it seems a bit flat, add about ½ teaspoon of your sweetener of choice. Taste again and repeat until it tastes just right.

Add several very generous turns of black pepper, about two full teaspoons. Stir in olive oil and cream, if using, taste and correct for salt.

Use right away or refrigerate for up to two days.

Suggested uses:

• Toss with very fresh salad greens.

• Drizzle over poached lobster, grilled quail, roasted chicken, seared ducked breast, smoked poultry, seared skirt steak or grilled hanger steak, served atop fresh greens.

• Toss with roasted root vegetables.

• Swirl over winter squash soup.

• Drizzle over roasted or grilled figs that have been wrapped in bacon.

• Make a baguette sandwich using thinly sliced prosciutto, fresh goat cheese and figs. Drizzle this vinaigrette over it before adding the top half of the bread.

• Baste roast chicken with the dressing several times during its final 20 minutes in the oven and then, after it is craved, drizzle a bit more dressing over it. It is delicious served atop creamy polenta.

It is easy to make a cream-soda-style drink at home, especially when you have vanilla-flavor simple syrup on hand. It is delicious and refreshing on a hot fall day.

Homemade Cream Soda

Makes 1, easily increased

Ice cubes

4 tablespoons Vanilla Simple Syrup (see recipe below)

1 to 2 teaspoons commercial vanilla paste, optional

Sparkling water

Fill a tall glass with ice cubes. Add the simple syrup and the vanilla paste, if using, top off with sparkling water and enjoy.

Flavors of vanilla are layered into this voluptuous coffee cake. It is delicious at breakfast and even better for afternoon tea. And your house will never smell better than while it is baking.

Sour Cream Coffee Cake

Serves 6 to 10

12 ounces (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

3 cups unbleached flour

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

1 ½ teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 ½ cups sugar, preferably vanilla sugar (see recipe below)

3 eggs

1 ½ cups sour cream

2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract

¾ cup brown sugar

¾ cup lightly toasted walnuts, chopped

1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon

Confectioners sugar

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Use a nubbin of butter to coat the inside of a 10-inch tube pan or a large baking dish. Set the remaining butter aside.

Put the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. Stir with a fork and set aside.

Combine the butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat with a heavy whisk or electric mixer until smooth and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the sour cream and 1 tablespoon of the vanilla. Gradually add the sifted dry ingredients, mixing well after each addition.

In a separate bowl, combine the brown sugar, walnuts and cinnamon.

Spread one-third of the batter over the bottom of the buttered pan and sprinkle half the walnut mixture over it. Repeat with a second layer of batter followed by the remaining walnut mixture. Finish with the remaining batter.

Mix the remaining tablespoon of vanilla with a tablespoon of water and sprinkle it over the batter.

Set on the middle rack of the oven and cook for 60 to 70 minutes, until a thin knife, carefully inserted into the center of the cake, comes out clean. Remove from the oven, let cool in the pan for 15 minutes and transfer it from the pan to a platter.

Dust lightly with confectioners sugar and enjoy warm.

Simple syrup is identical to what we see on market shelves, typically on a bottom shelf in the liquor section where mixers are kept, and labeled “bar sugar.” It is easy to make at home and inexpensive. You can add other ingredients, too. I make black pepper simple syrup and this one, redolent with the aroma and flavor of vanilla.

Vanilla Simple Syrup

Makes about 2 cups

1 ¼ cups water

1 ¼ cups granulated sugar

1 vanilla bean, split open lengthwise

Put the water and sugar into a heavy saucepan and set over high heat. When the sugar is dissolved, add the vanilla bean and cook until the liquid is clear, about 2 to 3 minutes. Cover, remove from the heat and let steep for 30 minutes.

Remove the vanilla bean, set it on wax paper, let it dry and keep it wrapped and stored in the refrigerator, to use a few more times.

Pour the syrup into a glass jar. Stored in the refrigerator, it will keep indefinitely.

Vanilla sugar is easy to make and stays fragrant and flavorful for quite a long time when stored properly. For vanilla beans that you can trust to be high quality, visit vanillaqueen.com. The site sells in bulk, so you may want to go in with a few friends. The site also includes a link to a source for smaller quantities.

Vanilla Sugar

Makes 2 pounds

3 vanilla beans

2 pounds granulated sugar

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees. Set the vanilla beans on a baking sheet and set in the oven for 10 to 15 minutes, or a little longer if they are quite moist.

Remove from the oven and let cool.

Break the beans into small pieces and grind in an electric spice grinder or blender until reduced to a powder.

Pour the sugar into a large bowl, add the powdered vanilla and stir well. Store in an airtight container in a cool, dark cupboard or pantry.

Michele Anna Jordan is the author of 24 books to date, including “California Home Cooking.” Email her at michele@micheleannajordan.com.