These little brown sticks are vanilla beans in case you've never seen them before.
Here we have a large jug of vodka. It's not only great for daiquiris and other drinks though. Today we're making our own vanilla. Aren't you excited? It's the easiest thing you'll ever make.
Take your vanilla beans and a some scissors. This is optional, but I like to slice the beans.
I feel that it gives more flavor quickly when the beans have been sliced.
Find a mason jar or other container. I love using mason jars for whatever I can. We have them all over our house. Place a few vanilla beans in your jar. I think I ended up with 4 beans in there.
Add some of that wonderful vodka to the jar.
Stick a lid on the jar. Shake it up every so often. After a few days your vanilla will have a beautiful golden caramel color to it.
After a few weeks or a couple months you will get a deep amber brown color letting you know that your vanilla is ready to be used. Now go and make some cookies. This jar is actually over a year old. When it gets low I just add more vodka. I also just started another jar since it seems like I use quite a bit a vanilla around here. Stop buying that nasty imitation vanilla with disgusting fillers in them. Make your own and know what you're putting into your body. Vodka and vanilla is a win win, right?
6 comments:
Where do you buy your beans? And how long you can use them before they lose their vanilla-ness?
I bought the beans from a local grocery store in the spice section. I'm not sure how long the beans can be used to make this vanilla, but the beans itself have a long shelf life. I did read somewhere that the vanilla extract is like red wine and gets better with age. I've used them same beans for over a year now and they still taste great.
Look around when you buy the beans. Our local grocery store has one bean for $12.00. I then went to a Bob's Red Mill store and found them for $3.00 each.
Yum! I've never made vanilla and didn't know it was that easy. I actually thought this post was going to be about some syrupy vanilla-y frou-frou mixed drink. This is way better.
This is great! I keep meaning to make it for gifts but I didn't realize you could keep adding to it! Thanks.
Thanks for this post! My hubby and I have been saying for over a year that we are going to do this and about a month ago we finally bought the vodka. However, we had not taken the time to buy the beans. So, after opening to your blog yesterday and seeing your post, I immediately closed the computer, grabbed the keys, and told my husband I was running to the store for vanilla beans. I cut them up and cleaned up a mason jar. They are sitting on top of the fridge as we speak. Yay for our own vanilla! Thanks!
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