Last year some friends and I made real vanilla. We used vodka and vanilla beans, just like real vanilla is made.
Yesterday at church, one of the ladies who had made vanilla with me came to me and said that she was giving me her vanilla because it just still smelled like vodka. She just couldn't bear to use alcohol to cook with.
I chuckled because for someone who cooks professionally, which she does, she didn't seem to know that the alcohol cooks out when you heat it. And I guess she would rather use vanilla made with chemicals than vanilla made with alcohol. Oh well, her loss, my gain.
I just looked up the price of real vanilla and the best price I could find was three times the price we paid to make our own.
Yes, we had to go to a liqueur store. Oh well. There is nothing wrong with using real vanilla as far as I can tell and I will continue to use it until I am convinced otherwise.
2 comments:
Ohhhh Debbie! I want to make some!!!! Will you send me the recipe?How long does it stay good? Do you have to refrigerate it???? I love this idea!!!! I noticed you posted pics of Watkins...how does it compare?
To make vanilla, all you do is buy some vodka, the cheapest you can get. Put about 40 vanilla beans in each of the big jugs. I split them down the middle before I put them in. I think they are almost 2 liters, maybe something like 1.75 liters of vodka. Let sit for several months. It never gets bad, no don't refrigerate it. Put it in a dark cabinet. When I want to use mine, I find a nice bottle and put a funnel in the top with one of those little strainers sitting in it and strain it. Don't throw away the used vanilla. Get a jar and put some regular sugar in it and after the vanilla is dry, put it in the sugar for vanilla sugar. I just spread the vanilla out on a cookie sheet or something to dry.
I buy my vanilla beans off e-bay. You can get a pound for around $10.00. A pound will do at least 3 of the big bottles of vodka, maybe more. Wal Mart sells vanilla beans in the spices, 3-4 beans for 9.00, that could cost one arm and two legs to make this much vanilla.
After the vanilla had sat for at least 2-3 months you can use it. I think you can use it before that, but the longer it sits the better. I have about 4 of those big bottles with beans in them and I just leave the beans until I am ready to decant it into a nicer bottle. Then I reuse the beans either for sugar or to make more vanilla. I love vanilla sugar.
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