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Vanilla Extract

By Alana Chernila

1.3

(2)

Image may contain Glass
Vanilla ExtractJennifer May
Storage

Room temperature • sealed container, indefinitely
Freezer • no

Recipe information

  • Yield

    Yield varies

Ingredients

Cheap vodka, enough to fill your jar or bottle
Spent vanilla beans, at least 3

Preparation

  1. Step 1

    1. Fill a mason jar or bottle with vodka. After you use the seeds of a vanilla bean in a recipe, rinse off the vanilla bean and put it in the vodka. You'll need at least 3 vanilla beans in there for at least 3 weeks to get a good extract going, but it's fine to use more beans, too. Your extract is ready when it is a lovely brown color and it smells like vanilla.

    Step 2

    2. Either pour the extract it into a new bottle and start over or keep topping off the working bottle with vodka and keep shoving more vanilla beans into the bottle. As long as you don't let it get too empty, you can keep using the extract indefinitely even as you continue to top it off.

Reprinted with permission from The Homemade Pantry: 101 Foods You Can Stop Buying & Start Making by Alana Chernila. Copyright © 2012 by Alana Chernila; photographs copyright © 2012 by Jennifer May. Published by Clarkson Potter, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher Alana Chernila writes, cooks, sells fresh vegetables, and teaches cheese making. She created the blog EatingFromTheGroundUp in 2008. Alana is a graduate of St. John's College in Santa Fe and lives with her husband and their two young daughters in western Massachusetts.
TagsVodkaAlcoholBeveragesVanillaHerbs & SpicesDairy FreeGluten FreeNut FreeVegetarianVeganEasyMake Ahead5 Ingredients or FewerNo-CookCookbooks

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