home made vanilla extract

I'm so excited, I have to share!!!

Poor vanilla, to be so under-rated and unappreciated in the flavour world, to have gained the undeserved stigma of being a euphemism for bland, dull, and boring.  So unfair, since it is probably the artificial vanilla that has created this reputation, when truthfully real vanilla is so rich, bold, and intense it'll knock you into next week.  Think about it, when you're making a cake or cookies you use a big chunk of butter, a cup or more of sugar, a few eggs, a few cups of flour, volume wise you've got maybe two litres of cake batter or cookie dough and into this gets mixed one stingy teaspoon of vanilla, and if you don't add the vanilla you notice it's missing, you notice big-time.

Vanilla is a flavour I learnt about early in my baking experience.  My Gram LuVerne and Grandpa Bill were snow-birds, a Canadian term used to describe retired folks who escape the cold winter months by basking in the sunshine of the southern USA.  Their annual migration took them to Arizona near the border of Mexico.  A few trips across the border each year brought back exotic gifts for the family that usually included a big one litre bottle of real vanilla extract for my Mom.  Most of Mom's baking recipes were from sources written at a time when artificial vanilla was a widely accepted substitute and real vanilla was difficult to find and prohibitively expensive to buy, or at least that seemed to be the case in our northern, wilderness town, so she often cut the listed vanilla quantities in half when baking and even that tiny little splash of a few drops of real vanilla was still enough to bring the flavours to life.  Every time I was peer-pressured into sharing my baked treats at school, I always got the feed-back that was the best they'd ever tasted, even children can taste the difference real vanilla makes.  (Yes, I had to be pressured into sharing, I was not a popular child so consequently I was not a generous one after I wised up to the lack of reciprocation that always left me holding the short end of the stick.)

There was a time in my life, during and for a few years after university when I avoided the kitchen, cooking and baking were not a priority for me.  And when I resumed interest in the domestic arts, I have to admit that my frugal nature often gets veto power on purchasing decisions.  The first bottle of vanilla I bought was the artificial variety, and the disappointment loomed over all my efforts, I honestly thought my baking skills had been lost because nothing seemed to come out tasting right.  But I persevered through the mediocrity of my results and one day I noticed some real vanilla on sale in the grocery store, I figured I'd need to re-stock soon and even though it was still more than twice the price of the artificial maybe having the real stuff will provide some inspiration.  So many flavour problems were solved with the purchase of that one little bottle!  Despite the price, I've never gone back to the fake stuff, actually I even deemed the lower quality brand a false economy and upgraded.

So check this out!!!  A few years ago, I was in Africa and toured a spice farm, and bought a whole bunch of vanilla pods, they were very well priced, I think I bought half the pods they had at their stall and only held myself back from buying all of them because other people on the tour made grumblings of me being greedy.  I'm a bit bitter that the snarky people didn't even want them because as I passed the stall when leaving I noticed that most of the vanilla pods I left were still there, I would have gone back and bought the rest if there had been someone to take my money.  I thought I used them all up a long time ago, but I guess since my method of rationing a bounty that is running short is simply to hide some of it from myself meant that I didn't and a few weeks ago I was having a rummage through my cupboards and found them.  Of course they were dried out and when I tried to split one open it broke into a several pieces, oh the sadness.  But google to the rescue, I looked up how to make home made vanilla extract, and it's simple as can be.

Only because they were dried out I steeped my vanilla pods in boiling water for a few minutes to soften them but otherwise, the first step was to split them open, then push them into a bottle and pour over some clear alcohol.  Most of the bloggers suggested vodka but I had the misfortune of buying a drink made with vanilla flavoured vodka and didn't like it, Sailor Jerry on the other hand I have found to be quite nice (don't judge me), so I used rum.  I suppose at least I knew that I didn't want to use vodka before making this so choking on the vanilla-vodka cocktail wasn't a total wasted experience.

My bottle was a bit too big for the amount I made based on the alcohol to vanilla pod ratio suggested but I just tipped it on on an angle and rested it against a box to keep the pods submerged and put it in a dark cupboard.  About half an hour after latching the bottle shut, I started to worry that it wasn't going to work at all because the pods were so old, I took it out and was surprised to see the rum already pulling a bit of amber colour out of the pods.  Every few days, give the bottle a good shake to stir it up, after a week it'll start to look impressively brown, and four weeks later the end result is a mysteriously dark, almost black, liquid with a ripe fragrance that dances along the nerves of your olfactory system like perfume.

So it smells good, but what does it taste like?  To test it out I made a baked set custard (like you would for a creme brulee, I just couldn't be bothered with the sugar crust topping) by mixing together 2 eggs,  1/2 cup sugar, and 1 cup milk, I poured equal amounts of the mix into two ramekins and measuring precisely into one mixed a half tsp of high quality store bought vanilla and into the other a half tsp of my home made vanilla, baked for 40 min at 300^F (150^C) in a water bath.

Then tasted them both.  I'm not going to say the custard with the store bought vanilla was bad, it was good and if you served me that one I would have thought you were a kitchen wizard, but the custard with my home made vanilla was holy-moly so, so, so much more intensely flavoured!  I almost couldn't believe it because I really cheaped out on the quality of rum (this was an experiment that might not have worked out after all) and the vanilla pods were so old when I found them in the cupboard and while they were very good they weren't the finest variety of pod to begin with. 

For future planning I did a bit more googling to run the maths:  bulk order of 12 vanilla pods online is approx  £4 + £2 postage, 350ml of the cheapest rum I could find was £6, total cost £12 for 350ml vanilla.  A 118ml bottle of my normal brand of posh vanilla extract at my nearest grocery store is £9.90 which works out to about £29.36 for 350 ml so home made is over £17 cheaper for 350ml.  The most common ratio of vanilla pods to alcohol that I found is 18 pods to 1 litre, I only had 7 pods which is why I did 350ml, if you buy 12 pods and make 350ml vanilla you'll have some pods left over - bonus - or buy more rum and do your own math.  Huge economic savings and tastier, I think I'm going to be making my own vanilla from now on.


P.S. the water I used to steep the vanilla pods to soften them smelled so divine that my frugal nature wouldn't let me pour it down the drain so I tipped it into my kettle and made a cup of tea, it was heavenly!

P.P.S. for my sisters, memories of the Christmas we drove down to spend with G&G in Arizona:  first exposure to outlet malls, that scary looking fence along the US-Mexico border, Dad's bull whip that I nearly blinded myself with, illegal fireworks including those little poppers we threw at each other and got burn marks on our clothes (or at least on my jean jacket), how fast the sun would set in the evenings that far south, wearing shorts and t-shirts on christmas day, all the little market stalls selling carved wood knick-knacks and turquoise jewellery, and cactus hugging photos.