Easy Homemade Vanilla Extract

May 03, 2018 The Provident Princess 0 Comments

I love making thinkg from scratch. There is just something so satisfying to me about providing something to my family from start to finish. I love knowing that even if I buy the highest quality ingredients, I am still saving more money doing it myself rather than buying a premade lower quality item. That is definitely the case with making your own homemade vanilla extract.

"There's no such thing as too much vanilla." That is a saying my girls and I have whenever we need to measure out vanilla for a recipe and inevitably add more. We love to just open the bottle of vanilla extract and take a big whiff. It's amazing.

What isn't amazing is the price of vanilla extract lately. It has skyrocketed over the last couple of years. Last year, I went to Costco to buy my usual bottle of vanilla, only to discover that what used to cost me around $14 was $20. It's up to $25 now. That is a huge increase and unfortunately it's not going to change any time soon. I decided to do something about that and made my own vanilla extract and thought I'd share the recipe with you today.

Unlike most commodity crops, vanilla has no price regulations, which means that it is susceptible to dramatic price fluctuations due to supply and demand. For almost 10 years there was an abundance of vanilla on the market. That drove the prices down to the point where farmers couldn't make a living wage. So what did they do? They burned all their vanilla bean vines and decided to grow a different crop that would make them money.

Who can blame them?

But what that did is make an incredible shortage of vanilla beans for the next few years and prices skyrocketed. And this is where we find ourselves now.

Luckily, we don't have to be slaves to whatever price vanilla is currently selling at. We can make our own vanilla extract with just 2 ingredients. And what's best about it is that it will last forever.

INGREDIENTS   __________________________________________________________________ 
This is seriously the easiest 'recipe' in the world. All you need is Vodka and Vanilla Beans


Make sure to get grade B vanilla beans. Grade A are meant to be cooked with but grade B are meant for infusing and will give you a better flavor.  These look great or you can use Tahitian vanilla beans for a different flavor.  This is essentially a one time purchase. So while it might be a bit of money up front (about the same as buying a bottle of extract at Costco), you can continue to use these same vanilla beans indefinitely.

The good news is that even though the vanilla beans are pricey, you can buy the cheapest kind of vodka you can find. All you need is 80 proof, but the vodka itself doesn't matter. I like to buy vodka in a glass bottle so I can just use that for storing my vanilla extract too. If you buy vodka in plastic you should use a mason jar or other glass jar to store it in. Make sure it is tall enough to fit the beans standing up.

DIRECTIONS  ___________________________________________________________________
The usual recipe for vanilla extract that you would buy at the store is about 2-3 beans per cup of alcohol and is called single fold vanilla. The super fancy, extremely flavorful vanilla chefs use to create their dishes with a vanilla flavor that can't be matched by just doubling the amount of single fold vanilla is called double fold vanilla. Double fold vanilla calls for 5 vanilla beans per cup of alcohol.

Chose whichever you prefer. Just know that this vanilla extract can last forever. You can just top off the bottle with new vodka as you use it.

• Drop the vanilla beans in the vodka whole. Don't slice them open. Some people like to slice the beans open so you can see the little seeds but it doesn't make the flavor any stronger to do it that way. If you leave your beans whole, you can pull them out one at a time for recipes that call for vanilla bean seeds. Just snip off the end and squeeze out the seeds to use in your recipe. Then just throw the shells back into the extract. It's like you are getting vanilla bean paste for free. 
• Place your vodka in a cool, dark place and give it a shake every now and then.