Tag: pure vanilla

Homemade Vanilla Extract

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, dry storedLeave a comment

If you store vanilla beans in alcohol, they not only create vanilla extract for you but also stay mold free. Learn more at TwiceasTasty.com.
I’ve been working on pieces lately with recipes that are so simple but that have become more common as store-bought items for most people, including salad dressings, herb salt, and the latest recipe in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon: homemade vanilla extract. Beyond all of the reasons I give in my column for turning vanilla beans into extract, I’ve found that the process essentially acts as my vanilla bean storage system, keeping the expensive pods from spoiling.

Most grocery stores sell vanilla beans a pod at a time, the long, thin, dark shape tucked into a vial. Depending on how well it’s been sealed, the bean might be oily and pliable or dry and brittle. Sellers recommend keeping the bean as packaged until you need to use it but airing it out if you still have it 3 to 6 months later. I hadn’t realized how crucial this was until a friend who had bought oily, pliable vanilla beans in a vacuum-sealed pack opened the bag one day to find they had molded. But if you store the beans in alcohol, they not only create vanilla extract for you but also stay mold free. Just make sure they’re completely submerged.
Learn to make Homemade Vanilla Extract

Alcohol Infusions

On By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Dry storage, TopicLeave a comment

Start with vanilla extract, and then expand your repertoire to drinkable liqueurs. Get alcohol infusion recipes at TwiceasTasty.com.
It seems that almost every baking recipe, and many other sweet treats, call for vanilla extract. Although the price of full beans and their extract may tempt you to substitute imitation vanilla, the cooks in my family were firm believers of using the real deal long before Jamie Oliver told the world that the fake version comes from the beaver anal gland. He didn’t have that quite right, but other sources of synthetic vanillin include coal tar, paper waste, and cow poop, which don’t sound any more appealing. Since companies are only required to use the label “artificial vanilla” or “imitation vanilla,” you’ll never really know what you’re eating.

When a 2017 cyclone wiped out a large chunk of Madagascar’s vanilla crop, prices for beans skyrocketed. So in splurging for the real stuff, you can get the most bang for your buck by making your own extract from vanilla beans: Scrape out the seeds needed for your recipe, and then use the pods for your extract, like you would for vanilla-infused sugar. Once you realize how easy it is to infuse this vanilla flavor, you’ll be on your way to making alcoholic infusions you intend to drink—liqueurs like triple sec.
Learn to make Homemade Vanilla Extract and Homemade Orange Liqueur