Italian bakers! Over here...

[nicename]

paneangeli - lievito pane degli angeli

What is this? My Italian friend came over with her usual bag of goodies and gave me some of this (her other friend who lives here is also Italian and always asks her to bring some over). My Italian is just too basic to know what it is... It looks like maybe baking powder but smells heavenly (vanilla). Someone told me it was yeast for a specific type of cake.

I'm quite a good baker and am just too embarrassed to ask her what it is!

What should I do with it?

According to amazon.com it's a raising agent for cakes that contains vanilla.

It's basically vanilla flavoured baking powder. In Italy, they sell baking powder like this - in Italian recipes you'll see things like "1 sachet of baking powder"

I'm wracking my brains for cakes that it would be suitable for. I use bp in chocolate cake and apple cakes.