Homemade Vanilla Extract? Pronounce Me Dead Because I am in HEAVEN!

I was going to post about an awesome Triple Chocolate Ice Cream that I made, but as I was doing my blog-crawl today I came across this article that explains how insanely easy it is to make homemade vanilla extract.  I bake a lot and I go through quite a lot of vanilla extract and since I don’t use the imitation crap, it can tend to be pretty expensive.  After reading this article, I informed my husband that it was a matter of life and death that we go to the Whole Foods Market and procure the items that I needed to make my own homemade vanilla extract.

Visit The Hungry Mouse for the whole recipe and process.  She uses vodka for her extract, but I’ve noticed that all of the really high end vanilla extracts are made from rum.  I thought I’d try rum this time.

At Whole Foods, I got two vanilla beans for $2.99 each.  I got that small bottle of rum for $8.50.  That’s a very large amount of vanilla extract (if this works) for less than $15!  I typically pay at least $12 for a small bottle of real vanilla extract at the grocery store.  That is an awesome AWESOME bargain, ladies and gentlemen.

I simply opened my little bottle of rum, made my husband do a shot (to make a little room in the bottle for shaking) and plopped in my vanilla beans.

That’s a vanilla bean.  There’s no need to split the bean, you just put it in the bottle whole.  These little suckers have a crazy strong vanilla scent that is heavy and a little musky.  My husband said it almost reminded him of pipe tobacco.

Once the beans are in the bottle, replace the cap and shake, shake, shake, shake, and shake some more!  You want to really agitate this mixture so that when you hold the bottle up to the light you see little dark specks of vanilla floating around.  As per the directions of The Hungry Mouse, store this in a cool dark place and shake every few days.  In 6-8 weeks you’ll have high quality vanilla extract that can be replenished simply by adding more vanilla beans and liquor.

I’ll be sure to post updates on my batch and once I am able to use it, I will let you know if it is as great as I am hoping.  Please consider doing this!  Vanilla extract is a kitchen staple in most kitchens and this is a super duper cheap way to obtain that staple.  Again, I’ll keep you updated!

We’ll talk Triple Chocolate Ice Cream tomorrow.

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