Bakers, rejoice.

Vanilla prices are plummeting after five years of increases that saw the cost of an 8-ounce bottle of extract rise higher than a pound of prime beef tenderloin.

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Some retailers have cut prices nearly in half; others are likely to do so in coming weeks. Wholesale prices dropped in February, when an abundant vanilla crop started coming to market.

At Cook's Warehouse in Midtown, owner Mary Moore has cut the price for a four-ounce bottle of extract from $19 to $12.

"Vanilla's been so much for so long," Moore says. "We were still selling it, but not as much."

King Arthur Flour's spring catalog exhorts bakers to "stock up while you can" on cheaper vanilla. Other retailers have been slower to cut prices. At Williams-Sonoma, a 6-ounce bottle of vanilla extract is still $29.

Vanilla prices started climbing in 2000, when a cyclone in Madagascar wiped out about 30 percent of the world's supply. Vanilla plants take two to three years to mature, so there was no quick recovery. Early harvests that reaped profits for growers, but produced small beans, worsened the shortage.

Nielsen-Massey Vanillas, a major supplier, saw its cost for beans go from $50 a kilogram (2.2 pounds) to nearly $600 over the past five years, says director of sales Dan Fox. To cope with the rising prices, many big vanilla users, including some ice cream makers, bakeries and confectioners, cut back on real vanilla or switched to cheaper vanillin, a substitute flavoring made from wood pulp. That cut demand sharply, one reason prices are so much lower.

Fox is hoping the big commercial users switch back to real vanilla. Prices should stay low for at least the next two or three years, he says.

To ease sticker shock for home bakers, McCormick rolled out a blend of real and imitation vanilla, and Nielsen-Massey debuted a smaller, 2-ounce bottle.

Atlanta-based Greenwood Ice Cream Co. stocked up on vanilla at the end of 2003, trying to avoid the even higher prices predicted for 2004, says president Mitchell Williams. He started worrying about theft, realizing that just four gallons of double-strength vanilla cost as much as a laptop computer. He didn't lose any to theft, but is relieved that prices are low again.

"No one knew it was going to last as long or be as ugly as it has," he says.