extracting vanilla
Jun. 3rd, 2024 09:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishI talk a lot about how the one unambiguously good thing I got out of being on the Feingold diet as a kid ("no artificial flavours, colours, or preservatives, no high-fructose corn syrup, no 'natural salicylates' from certain fruits") was real maple syrup. I don't think much about how 'vanillin' was also banned and so I developed a taste for real vanilla as well.
Some years ago Erin got into a Facebook group related to a vanilla bean co-op, and made some extract and paste (like extract but gooier, stronger, and with bits of tiny bean pods / 'caviar' in) and sugar. This seemed like a pretty neat thing but I wasn't in a headspace where I was up for a new hobby, especially not one with a multi-month lead time. So I mostly forgot about it.
A few months ago Andi mentioned that she was ordering vanilla beans and did anyone want any, or have any recommendations as to what to do with them? And I said "oh right that" and got her to order me four ounces of Vanilla × tahitensis beans, with also no real idea what I'd do with them. They showed up while Erin was here and have been infusing my apartment with a lovely scent, from inside a sealed ziplock.
This week I finally got around to putting them up for extract. Based on "standard is one ounce beans to one cup booze" and "there's no real point in doing more than double that" I figured I could make 2x375ml. One is the cheapest vodka I could find, because they recommend vodka for a starter. The other is "Sailor Jerry's spiced rum" because it sounded interesting. I decanted the booze into pint mason jars so that I could get the beans back out again afterwards, split the beans and dropped them in, and put the (labeled) jars at the back of my pantry. I'll give them a shake when I remember and test them in four months or so.
Once the extract is done I can use the beans to make vanilla sugar. Based on "one bean per cup of sugar" and "these are smallish beans, and more certainly won't hurt" I will still have around a 2.5kg (5lb) bag worth of vanilla sugar. Might end up as Xmas gifts, depending on timing.
("What do you do with vanilla sugar?" You put it in any recipe that uses white sugar and inexplicably does not include vanilla extract. Or you put it in your coffee/tea/lemonade, or use it for cookie decoration, or or or.)
Nice to have something concrete to look forward to in the fall.
Some years ago Erin got into a Facebook group related to a vanilla bean co-op, and made some extract and paste (like extract but gooier, stronger, and with bits of tiny bean pods / 'caviar' in) and sugar. This seemed like a pretty neat thing but I wasn't in a headspace where I was up for a new hobby, especially not one with a multi-month lead time. So I mostly forgot about it.
A few months ago Andi mentioned that she was ordering vanilla beans and did anyone want any, or have any recommendations as to what to do with them? And I said "oh right that" and got her to order me four ounces of Vanilla × tahitensis beans, with also no real idea what I'd do with them. They showed up while Erin was here and have been infusing my apartment with a lovely scent, from inside a sealed ziplock.
This week I finally got around to putting them up for extract. Based on "standard is one ounce beans to one cup booze" and "there's no real point in doing more than double that" I figured I could make 2x375ml. One is the cheapest vodka I could find, because they recommend vodka for a starter. The other is "Sailor Jerry's spiced rum" because it sounded interesting. I decanted the booze into pint mason jars so that I could get the beans back out again afterwards, split the beans and dropped them in, and put the (labeled) jars at the back of my pantry. I'll give them a shake when I remember and test them in four months or so.
Once the extract is done I can use the beans to make vanilla sugar. Based on "one bean per cup of sugar" and "these are smallish beans, and more certainly won't hurt" I will still have around a 2.5kg (5lb) bag worth of vanilla sugar. Might end up as Xmas gifts, depending on timing.
("What do you do with vanilla sugar?" You put it in any recipe that uses white sugar and inexplicably does not include vanilla extract. Or you put it in your coffee/tea/lemonade, or use it for cookie decoration, or or or.)
Nice to have something concrete to look forward to in the fall.
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Date: 2024-06-04 04:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-06-07 06:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-06-04 06:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-06-07 06:39 pm (UTC)I am excited and very slightly impatient to see how the extracts do.
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Date: 2024-06-18 09:23 pm (UTC)