Why We Make Vanilla Sugar and Pudding Powders from Scratch

The American Grocery Store Aisle

Every time I walk down a baking aisle in an American grocery store, I find myself picking up boxes and reading the ingredient lists. It has become a habit, and it rarely makes me happy.

I pick up a box of pudding mix and read the ingredient list: Yellow 5, artificial colors, artificial flavor. I put it back and pick up a packet of vanilla sugar, which is somehow no better: vanillin (synthetic vanilla) and a list of additives.

In Germany, these are pantry staples, but the real version is what you make at home, not what you find on store shelves. I stood there in that American grocery store and realized that if I wanted the products I grew up with, I was going to have to make them myself.

What These Products Actually Are in Germany

Vanillezucker is sugar and vanilla bean, at least the way it was made at home. You crush and grind real vanilla beans, mix them into fine sugar, and let it sit on the pantry shelf until the sugar absorbs the fragrance. We include a whole vanilla bean in each jar too, just for how it looks. This is how it was done on Oma's shelf. No extract. No alcohol. Just the bean doing what it does naturally, given enough time.

Puddingpulver is cornstarch, sugar, and real vanilla or real chocolate. You stir it into hot milk, and you have pudding. It is one of the first things German kids learn to make in the kitchen. It is not a science experiment.

Why the American Versions Don't Work

The dyes are what bother me most about the pudding powders. Yellow dye in vanilla pudding, as if cornstarch and milk need help looking the right color. The dye is there to make you think the product contains something it does not, like egg yolks or real vanilla. We use a touch of turmeric in our vanilla pudding powder for color instead.

Then there is the vanilla itself. American vanilla products almost always use vanillin or vanilla extract dissolved in alcohol, neither of which is what Germans mean when a recipe calls for Vanillezucker. Real vanilla sugar gets its flavor from the bean, slowly infusing into the sugar over time. Oma would not recognize the American versions.

So We Made Our Own

William wrote about his first encounter with quark, the German ingredient he had never heard of before meeting me. He stood in a German grocery store, staring at a dairy aisle he did not understand. My challenge was the reverse: an ingredient I grew up with, staring back at me from an American box, full of things that did not belong there.

I had not really thought through what the American versions would mean for our baking, but once I read the labels, making our own became a natural next step. These were the missing ingredients that make German recipes simple yet great, and we needed them to be right. Now we use Vanillezucker and Puddingpulver in our own cakes and recipes every day, and we started packaging the extras for sale at the market. These are staples people should have access to, great for baking and just as good on their own as a quick, easy-to-make dessert.

Our Vanilla Sugar uses real vanilla beans, just like it was made at home, more authentic than what you'd find on any store shelf in Germany or here. Our Pudding Powders use cornstarch, sugar, real chocolate and cocoa or real vanilla, and a touch of turmeric in the vanilla pudding for color. No dyes, no stabilizers, no ingredients you need a chemistry degree to read. A few simple ingredients, the way it was always done.

Find Them at the Market

Our Vanilla Sugar and Pudding Powder are available at our market table alongside our cakes. If you want to taste what these staples are supposed to be, the way they were in Oma's pantry, find us at a market or reach out directly.