i am getting ready to make a purchase from bickford flavors of there for eccentric extracts (i am so ready to walk on the wild side, lol) and i am really confused about wether to buy their water soluble or their oil soluble extracts.

i emailed the company and they said water soluble for baking and oil soluble for candy....but i use butter in my baking and my buttercreams....wouldn't that mean oil soluble?

can anyone help me with this minor, yet irritating, dilemma?

diane

I've never used bickford, but usually the oil soluble flavorings are more expensive, so people use the water soluble ones when possible. Think about how much vanilla extract you can buy at the grocery store for the cost of a teaspoon of lorann oil.

I think the oil is mostly for chocolate...which does bad things when water is introduced.

the oil soluble is not an "oil" like lorann, it's still an extract and both the oil and water soluble are the same price.

it you buy mccormick's vanilla (the horror...lol, just kidding, that IS what i buy) is that water soluble or oil soluble?

so even if it is "water" soluble, is that still ok for flavoring buttercreams?

aaaaargh.

I looked at the order form on the Bickford website (they have some yummy looking flavors!) and the oils seemed to be about twice as much. If they're the same price as the extracts, the oil would be a better deal because it's usually more concentrated.

The difference between an extract and an oil is that the flavor is put into a base of either alcohol and water, or oil. You can add either one to buttercream frosting or to cake batter or to marshmallow fondant. If you add extract to melted chocolate, it will seize up.

McCormick's Vanilla is water soluble.

Where I get my icing color, they also sell oil-based gel/paste colors for candies/chocolates. The regular colors are water-based. I'm not a candy expert, but it stands to reason that the flavoring oils would be based on the same principal. I would use the water-based oils for buttercream. (Of course, I could be totally wrong, but it sounds good to me!)

bickford has:

water soluble extracts
oil soluble extracts
oils

the oils are really spendy, but both the extracts are the same.

i know about flavoring candy/chocolate and am all set up here with oils and oil candy color for my chocolate decorations.

but i don't want to use the spendy oils if i don't have a good reason to, that is why i loved the big range of extract flavors bickford offered. normally you only see this big range in oils. i just don't know which type of extract to get.

but if the vanilla we buy at the grocery store is water based, and i use that for both cakes and buttercream, then i guess i can use water soluble extract OR oil soluble! i was just afraid water soluble wouldn't work in the bc, but heck, if that's what i am already using, i will stop worrying

thank you!