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Vanilla Extract Recipe

Vanilla Extract
Difficulty: Easy | Total Time: | Makes: 1 cup

Vanilla extract is called for in just about every baking recipe, but what most people don’t know is that making your own is incredibly easy, and even saves a little cash. (Our vanilla is about 25 percent cheaper than buying it at the store.) Just don’t confuse this recipe with an infused liquor for drinking—the extract is way too concentrated to sip on the rocks.

What to buy: Vanilla beans can be found in the spice or bulk section of most grocery stores. Choose dark, supple, oily pods.

Game plan: Using vodka for the base creates a vanilla extract with a neutral, all-purpose flavor, but we found that other liquors like rum and bourbon could also be used to add different flavors to your baking. Try a rum-based vanilla in rice pudding sprinkled with raisins, or top a steaming mug of Irish Coffee with some bourbon-vanilla whipped cream.

Make sure your jar is very clean or it may impart unintended flavors to the extract.

To get more mileage from the spent pods, tuck them into a jar of granulated sugar for a vanilla-scented sweetener to use in coffee, tea, or cookies.

This recipe was featured as part of our Homemade Vanilla Extract project.

INGREDIENTS
  • 3 vanilla beans
  • 1 cup vodka, rum, or bourbon
INSTRUCTIONS
  1. Using a paring knife, make an incision in 1 of the vanilla beans starting 1 inch from the end and continuing lengthwise through the remainder of the bean. Repeat with the remaining 2 beans.
  2. Place the vanilla beans in a 1-pint glass jar with a tightfitting lid. Add the vodka, rum, or bourbon and push the beans down until they are completely submerged. Seal the jar and store it in a cool, dark place for at least 1 month, shaking it once a week. The vanilla flavor will intensify the longer the beans remain in the infusion. Store the extract for up to 1 year. As you use it up, top the jar off with enough liquor to keep the beans submerged, replacing the vanilla beans as they start to lose their flavor (about every 3 to 6 months).
    Write a review | 9 Reviews
  • Vanilla Extract Recipe
    3

    I was in a little town called Sarlat, France not too long ago and talked with a couple of farmers who own a vanilla bean orchid farm on Reunion Island. They also made their own extract. I bought a pack of 20 pods, hoping that would be enough to make my own extract and they said for a tiny bottle (about 3 oz) they used over three times that and said if you use any less it's a waste of time. So I was scared away from making it myself. I'm wondering with 4 beans per cup, is it fairly potent? Has anyone that commented actually tried this particular proportion of beans to alcohol and found it really vanilla-y?

  • Vanilla Extract Recipe
    3

    @Mr Taster: I think that Ms. Lavery was being a responsible writer for the site. While it is probably fine to use super-aged vanilla, I doubt that CBS Interactive Inc. (owner of Chow.com) wants to be even remotely liable for any illnesses. It is very much like expiration dates on eggs. We have all eten eggs that are a few days (or even a few weeks) after they "expire;" that doesn't mean that your grocer is going to advocate or back the you trusting all eggs that sink to the bottom of a glass of water. Also, as any collage freshman would know, much hard liquor is sold 80 proof which is only 40% alcohol per vol.. While this is more that enough to make sure it has a long shelf-life, it is not "pure." Rubbing alcohol isn't even pure. Now imagine that: rubbing alcohol vanilla...

  • Vanilla Extract Recipe
    2

    Of course you can keep extract for over a year. It's essentially pure alcohol and will keep indefinitely in a well sealed glass jar. To be fair though, Lisa Lavery is only partially to blame for disseminating spurious culinary info, which is all too common on the internet these days. However, she absolutely should be called to task for not vetting her info before regurgitating it as facts, because now someone else is likely to grab onto this and pay the bilge forward, to a new crop of well-meaning but ignorant cooks. Just remember people, Chow.com is not Harold McGee. Take everything you read here with a very large grain of salt, and choose your fact sources carefully. Mr Taster

  • Vanilla Extract Recipe
    5

    I also don't understand the "store for up to 1 year" line. I've had my large glass jar going for a couple of years now, and intend to keep going indefinitely. I started with maybe 10 pods, and whenever I scrape a fresh one for a recipe I stuff it into the jar to add to the collection. I refill a small bottle from some commercial extract so that I don't have to go digging in the jar when baking, and whenever I remove any liquid I top the jar back up with more liquor (rum, in my case). And that's that. It gets better and more powerful every time I open it up. To the point where a recent batch of cookies had too much vanilla flavor -- something I'd never been able to do before even when doubling the amount called for. Awesome :-)

  • Vanilla Extract Recipe
    4

  • Vanilla Extract Recipe
    5

    I use Bourbon and what a difference it makes. Should it not last longer than a year??

  • Vanilla Extract Recipe
    5

    I take the 'used' beans, air dry and cover with sugar in a sealed glass jar - shake every day for a while and in about a month - voila' - vanilla sugar! Super in any sweet recipe and wonderful on buttered toast! Yum!

  • Vanilla Extract Recipe
    5

    I make mine the same way as nbled does, just taking out a bit of alcohol and adding the appropriate number of vanilla beans for the amount of alcohol. I've made it in both rum and vodka. It doesn't have to be expensive, either; I get my vanilla beans at http://www.indrivanilla.com for 50¢ each. Besides being inexpensive, they're just what the recipe describes: dark, supple, and oily. They make great extract, and I even add my empty, scraped pods to the mixture for extra oomph throughout the steeping process.

  • Vanilla Extract Recipe
    5

    I just buy a small bottle of Absoult and drink a bit and put the beans in. Lay it in a drawer and forget about it for a few months. Always have one that I use and one in the making.

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