Homemade Vanilla Extract: The Pantry Staple That Makes a Brilliant Gift

Pantry lovers series 6 – Homemade Vanilla Extract

In this final installment of my ‘pantry lovers’ series I give you one more thing that you’ve probably never in your life considered making at home. Is this a good use of time? HECK YES! How much fun is it to make these things from scratch? How much better do they taste? All the fun, and so much tastier.

Homemade vanilla extract is a simple thing, a cool trick up your sleeve and it makes a really gorgeous handmade gift. It’s a straightforward alcoholic extraction, you can use cheap or luxurious vodka, it really doesn’t make a material difference, and you get two goes at it! By that I mean make it once, pour off the extraction and then top up with vodka again for a second round. Fresh vanilla beans should give you two good batches of vanilla extract, and then when the beans are a bit worn out, you can use them to make vanilla sugar (recipe below).

I’ve been making homemade vanilla extract for years, searching for and buying incredible-smelling bunches of fresh vanilla beans online, delivered vacuum sealed and so plump and fragrant they make the old vanilla beans you might find in the supermarket look a bit like dry sticks.

I keep my eye out of good small bottles to re-use as vanilla extract bottles, they’re perfect if they’re about the height/length of a bean (approx 10cm.) Turning up with a bottle of this as a host gift for a dinner party never fails, I promise. Everyone has a use for vanilla even if they’re not a baker – you can add it to dressings and glazes or use it to wipe out your fridge or deodorise your microwave (heat a small bowl of water with a few drops of extract on high for one minute to clear bad smells.) You can use it in coffee, cocktails or your morning porridge.

Let’s also just take a moment to remember this is an alcoholic extract. It’s flavoured vodka. Just make a note of this to yourself when joyfully pouring it into a morning espresso, OK? It doesn’t have the viscosity of the usual vanilla extract you might buy because it doesn’t contain any of the usual glucose and is therefore not sticky and sweet. It can be used 1:1 in most recipes though. Note: if you have an aversion to vodka, you can also do this extraction using bourbon or rum.

Makes 250 ml (1 cup)
 
Ingredients

5 vanilla beans
250 ml (1 cup) vodka

Method
Place the vanilla beans in a narrow bottle that holds 200–250 ml (1 cup) liquid and top up with the vodka.
Leave to extract for 8–12 weeks for maximum flavour.
Either use (or gift) with beans in, or pour off the extraction and bottle it.
It does not need refrigeration and has an indefinite shelf life, as long as you don’t accidentally leave the lid off, in which case it will evaporate.

Vanilla Sugar
Use this in place of white sugar in any recipe calling for white sugar, for an additional vanilla-y hit.

Version 1
Makes 440 g (2 cups)
Ingredients
1 or 2 whole vanilla beans
440 g (2 cups) white sugar

Method
Blitz the vanilla and sugar together in a food processor, then store in an airtight container.

Version 2
Makes 1 kg
Ingredients
5 used dried vanilla beans
1 x 1 kg bag caster (superfine) sugar

Method
Up-end the bag of sugar into a jar that will hold all the sugar with some space left.
Stick the beans into the sugar, seal the jar and leave for at least 1 week.
The sugar will take on the flavour of the vanilla, and you can just leave the beans in there.

Version 3
Makes 125 g (1 cup)
Ingredients
125 g (1 cup) icing (confectioners’) sugar
3 teaspoons Vanilla Extract (recipe above)

Method
Mix the sugar and extract to a paste. Spread on a lined baking tray and dry out completely. Break into pieces and powder with the back of a spoon. Store in an airtight container.

Recipe adapted from Fiona Weir’s book “From Scratch” published by Hardie Grant 2022, photography by Alan Benson