LorAnn: Our Secret Ingredient!

Aug 11, 2026

Starting business in Michigan in 1962, the LorAnn family (actually their name is Grettenberger. LorAnn is a mashup of names of the founder’s wife, Laura, and daughter, Ann) has been making premium quality oils and essences for the baking industry for nearly six decades. These oils are incredibly simple to use and, depending on their consistency and strength, can be incorporated at almost any stage of the baking process which will produce different results.

LorAnn Super Strength Flavours are 3x to 4x stronger than typical alcohol-based extracts. Our most concentrated type of flavouring, these intense and exceptionally versatile flavours are all appropriate for the higher temperature demands of hard candy making but can also be used to flavour just about anything!

LorAnn Naturals are about 2x stronger than typical alcohol-based extracts. 'LorAnn Naturals' are concentrated, compounded flavours that are made with natural flavours. These flavourings are about half as potent as LorAnn’s traditional line of super strength flavourings.

LorAnn Bakery Emulsions are water-based, alcohol-free flavourings designed to replace traditional baking extracts 1:1, ie 1 teaspoon of emulsion for 1 teaspoon of extract. Because these emulsions are suspended in water rather than alcohol, their robust flavours do not "bake out" under high heat. This eliminates the sharp chemical taste and evaporation, caused by alcohol-based extracts, making them ideal for cakes, cookies, sweet breads, and frostings (buttercream or royal icing). When deciding on your flavour additions, the aroma of the bottle accurately previews the final baked taste.

When and how do you use LorAnn in your baking? When baking cakes, muffins etc, LorAnn oils allow you to enhance or emphasise the flavour of your mix by adding drops of your LorAnn Oil at the point of the recipe where you’d add the vanilla. Remember that their concentrated flavour is much stronger than traditional ‘essences’ so be careful and always ‘test’ as you go (who doesn’t love licking the bowl anyway!).

We recommend only adding your Lorann in droplets, to build the flavour you’re looking for, and of course you’re not limited to one flavour so try some different combinations to find your ideal mix.

A quick and easy way to flavour your macaron: simply add your (water-based) LorAnn flavour to your dry ingredients before you incorporate them into your meringue mix. One of our personal favourites are “Pineapple Lump Macaron” use Wilton or Chefmaster colours to make the macaron your favourite yellow then sandwich them with dark chocolate ganache. You can add your flavour by either flavouring your meringue mix with a water-based Lorann or alternatively, if you have an oil based LorAnn flavour, you can add that to cream as it's heating in the dark chocolate ganache filling.

Try flavouring your next batch of fudge, homemade gummies, lollipops or hard candies with Lorann too. Or, enhance your next batch of ice cream, especially good when working with fruit that’s early in the season and doesn’t have a lot of flavour. We’ve found that when you’re using LorAnn in frozen applications, you’ll need to use a little more as the freezing process dulls any flavour on the palate. You can even use it when creating gourmet popcorn coatings.

When and how do you use LorAnn in your cake decorating? LorAnn extracts allow you to play with icing flavours without affecting consistency and LorAnn's an excellent way to inject lots of flavour without having to introduce a lot of colour.

For buttercream, we recommend using 1/4 teaspoon per 1 cup butter or fat, but again, as with colour, always add the flavour gradually, and test as you go.
For fondant, just knead in a few drops, starting with a little at a time. Taste test as you go until it’s perfect.

Special mention for flavouring chocolate: The trick with chocolate is the oil content and whether or not it's compatible. With some flavours you could get thickening and will need to add cocoa butter or oil to thin/ smooth the finish, others can sieze making the chocolate separate and become grainy.

See the list of LorAnn flavours appropriate for use with chocolate here.

Flavouring drinks: add a few drops to punches, cocktails and mocktails. Or try our latest favourite, a homemade take on La Croix. An excellent refresher, when a glass of water just won’t do, La Croix are a great substitute for sugary sodas. Simply combine your preferred LorAnn oil (1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon of LorAnn Oils Super-Strength flavouring to your bottle of soda water), stir and enjoy.

Other uses include play dough, lip balms and candles … And LorAnn are not just about oils – they also produce some very good colour powders which are ideal when you want zero dilution of your product and are particularly good for chocolate and dry mixes.

To use: scoop a tiny amount of powder food colour and add to dry ingredients. For tinting chocolate or confectionary coating (Wilton Candy Melts) start with a small amount of your melted chocolate and mix in powdered colour to form a deeply coloured ‘marble’. Mix this ‘marble’ into your larger batch of melted chocolate or coating. Repeat if necessary until you have your desired hue.

Fun fact: Those colourful clouds of powder that runners enjoy in a Colour Run is typically a mixture of a small amount of powdered food coloring and corn starch.

Shop our range of LorAnn here: LorAnn

See the Usage Guides for Bakery Emulsions here and Super Strength Flavours here.