As I've been developing some recipes and playing around with different blends of the ingredients, I've started using a strawberry base of 1:1:1
- CAP Sweet Strawberry
- FA Strawberry
- TFA Strawberry Ripe
I find that this give a good sweet, slightly candied strawberry with just a hint of that earthy tartness that you get from a fresh picked strawberry. It goes really well as a straight replacement when a recipe calls for strawberry.
What are some of the other base mixes that you have come up with to replace single flavors?
It would be nice if we had a document with all known flavours that are suitable to be swapped. It's not the first time this has been brought up though. I'm just getting started, my first order will arrive next week, so I literally have nothing to contribute. I tried to get some CAP Sweet Strawberry but it was out of stock...did some searching and going to try to replace it with TPA Strawberry, which I was getting anyway because my first DIY is going to be Mustard Milk. At the last second I found RF (reduced flashpoint) CAP Sweet Strawberry...will see how that turns out.
IMO the number of flavors I've tried from one manufacturer that taste exactly like a flavor from a different source is "zero". Since the OP mentioned Strawberry, I have 8 different ones and they are indeed all different. You want to hit the extreme, compare banana flavors - nothing's even remotely close to another.
On top of flavor, you have potency. Even when the flavors are similar in profile, one brand might taste the same at 5% as another does at 1%. No swapping there...
So, then we have the difficulty of "close substitutes". Who can define close? I've made a number of recipes off this sub where I subbed one flavor I owned for another one I didn't. IMO I did not make the original recipe, and I can't judge the merits of the original recipe based on what I made. THere is just no reliable way to tell how close my substitute ingredient matches both the flavor and potency of the OP's ingredient. I've made a number of batches of "my version" of Oreo's Vanilla Custard, but I have never made Oreo's vanilla custard because I have a metric shit-ton of TFA French Vanilla which I use in place of the recipe's CAP French Vanilla. I don't know how different it would taste with the CAP because I like the version I make. Is TFA's FV a close sub for CAP's? It's only .5% of the recipe - can it make that big a difference? We can assume they aren't too far off, but that is just an assumption. I might like the original version more or less than the version I make, but until I've tried it it is speculation.
Bottom line: there is no substitution database to be made. If you make a recipe with anything other than the OP's ingredients, you are using an idea, not a recipe. This is fine BTW, just don't get upset if your version doesn't turn out to be what you expected.
I have played with some swapping, but this is more of a blending. I had a recipe that called for 4% tfa strawberry and 2% strawberry ripe. I started playing with this blend, and now I have a 30ml bottle that's all three strawberry blended together, and I just use 6% of that. I have another recipe that calls for 8% of Cap Sweet strawberry, I just use my own strawberry blend.
I haven't gotten too far with figuring out direct 1:1 replacements though.
I would be especially keen to know if anyone has managed to get a good blueberry mix. I have TFA blueberry extra, blueberry candy and blueberry wild and capella blueberry but i cant seem to get a nice rich blueberry from them like you find in premium juices like blueberry creme brule by cream de la cream or breaking blue by clancys.
I suggest getting FW Blueberry or FLV Blueberry to compliment them. FA Bilberry is a must with anything blueberry too, but just a little bit.