Homemade Vanilla Much More Than An Extract

November 30, 2012

Homemade Vanilla Much More Than An Extract

In my childhood home, vanilla was that little brown bottle in the back of the kitchen cabinet used occasionally in dessert making; but being the adventuresome child that I was, I dug through all the cans and boxes and opened that bottle. The sweet smell of vanilla captured me. Aromatherapy-who had heard of that? I began putting vanilla in all kinds of things: pancake mixes, boxed cakes, instant tapioca pudding (remember I was a child of the Betty Crocker era) and my mom wondered at the empty vanilla bottle or in my case imitation vanilla bottle.

Now I make my own Vanilla Extract

Ingredients

1 glass bottle Vodka (750ml-80proof)
12 vanilla beans
That's it- no strange and unusual ingredients needed to make this wonderful extract.

Directions

Remove about 1/2 cup of the vodka from the bottle
Place cut vanilla beans in the bottle . Most recipes call for using a knife to open the vanilla pods, I use my kitchen shears and just cut the pods into one inch pieces and then add another little snip up the side. ( I have found this method quicker for me.)
Give the bottle a shake -put the lid on tightly first
Store in a dark place, shaking when you think about it for at least 6 to twelve weeks

Once the extract is finished, you can strain and re-bottle it for Christmas gifts.

I keep the beans in the vanilla extract bottle in my cabinet but those I strained out from the gift bottles I put into a cup of raw sugar- once they were dry. The vanilla left in the used beans was still strong enough to enhance the sugar and 4 weeks later I had vanilla sugar.