Saturday, September 8, 2012

A Lot of Vanilla

I stopped by the liquor store and bought a giant bottle of vodka the other day.

And 25 Madagascar vanilla beans online.  They were on sale at beanilla.

I'm going to make vanilla extract.  The recipe says to just stick 5 vanilla beans, split lengthwise, in 8 ounces of 35%+ alcohol for two months.  I think I can do that without messing it up.

All this almond flour baking that I do requires whopping doses of vanilla, usually about a tablespoon per batch of cookies, so I am constantly running out.

Plus, you have to be careful nowadays because I've noticed that many of the commercially-prepared vanilla extracts have sugar or corn syrup and water added to them.  Making it myself I know that I will have a high-quality vanilla.

I am hoping that making it myself is cheaper, but honestly, I already forgot how much I paid for the 1.75-liter bottle of vodka!  I did go to this conversion site and find out that 1.75 liters converts to 59.174540 ounces.  Dividing this by 8, I find that I have enough to make my five bottles of extract with 2.3968175 ounces left over.

Hmmm.  What shall I do with the extra?

2 comments:

Kathy Felsted Usher said...

Good idea. We're straining our cordials that I've been making. By Christmas they should be mellowed out enough to drink or give as gifts. I didn't think about vanilla!

Unknown said...

My mom makes her vanilla extract and keep it in a mason jar. It's a lot of vanilla!