Home Brewed Vanilla Extract - Homemade - Copycat- Clone

Submitted by Fauve

"For the purist in you... the purest vanilla flavoring ever. This one is from an old Southern Living magazine, from October of 1983."

 

• Ready In: 1152hrs
• Ingredients: 2
• Yields: 2 cups

ingredients

• 2 cups vodka
• 5 vanilla beans, cut in 1 inch pieces

directions

1. Combine vodka and vanilla beans in jar with tight fitting lid.
2. Cover jar and let stand 6-8 weeks.
3. Vodka mixture will turn amber colored in a day or two.
4. After half the vanilla extract is used, add more vodka to cover the beans.
5. The flavor in the beans is gone when vodka no longer turns a dark color.

Reviews

[skat5762]

This stuff is incredible. I haven't yet made it, but my mother-in-law uses that very same recipe from Southern Living. She has shared some of the extract with me in recent months, and I was amazed at the difference in flavour. If you've never had the pleasure of home made extract, do yourself a favour this holiday season and try it out!

 

[Cloudtears]

Thank you so much for this recipe. At last a way to get around the high cost of this very important ingredient. I think I may also try it with coconut flavored rum, sounds like a power house addition to baking.

 

[Kasha]

Great recipe, I do it with a whole bottle of vodka and 8 to 10 split vanilla beans. I let it sit in a dark corner of the cupboard for 8 months to a year. I go through one vodka bottle of extract a year, so I remake one and always have one ready to be used when the current one is ready to run out. The beans are expensive, but the total cost must be less than buying all of that store bought extract, and this is so much better. You can take out the beans, after a year, dry them out and bury in a jar full of sugar for awhile, it makes the sugar taste good too, and you can use it in all sorts of things.

 

[WillsMommy]

Vodka works for this, but I'd recommend using Everclear instead. It has a higher alcohol content and will produce a purer vanilla.

 

[Lee_tah]

I use a whole bottle of vodka just like Barb. But I'm a cheap skate so I only put the empty pods in after I have scraped them out and used them in other cooking. I also buy my vanilla beans online from Herbies Spices, because they are really fresh. (www.gourmetshopper.com.au)