Vanilla Extract
Real vanilla extract is one of the easiest things to make and one of the most expensive to buy — it’s beans, vodka, and patience. Once you’ve got a jar going it never runs out, because you top it up as you use it and it only gets better with age. This is the version that lives in our cupboard, and the beans that started it were ten dried-out pods that had been forgotten in the back of the fridge.
VANILLA EXTRACT
Ingredients
- 65g vanilla beans, extract grade or Grade A – Bourbon Variety
- 500ml vodka (40%)
Method
- Chop 65g of vanilla beans into 1–2cm pieces. Kitchen scissors are far easier than a knife, especially on dry beans. Don’t split them lengthways and don’t scrape out the seeds — see the notes below.
- Drop the chopped beans into a clean 650ml jar and pour over 500ml of vodka. Every piece must be under the surface.
- Seal, shake, and write the date on the label.
- Store in a dark cupboard at room temperature. Shake it once a week for the first month, then whenever you think of it.
- Leave it a minimum of six months before using. Twelve months is better. The vodka will go from clear to pale amber to deep brown.
- To use, pour off what you need. Top the jar back up with vodka as you use it to keep the beans covered.
Notes
Why chop and not split. The flavour isn’t in the seeds — it’s in the sticky resin coating the tissue around them and in the wall of the pod itself. The seeds are just carriers, and scraping them into the jar gains you nothing but black sediment that won’t strain out. Chopping gives you far more exposed pod wall than splitting does, so it extracts faster and more completely.
How strong. 65g in 500ml is a little stronger than shop-bought, so use it teaspoon for teaspoon in any recipe. If you want it exact, 50g per 500ml is single-fold, which is the legal definition of pure vanilla extract. Double that to 100g per 500ml for a double-fold — worth it for ice cream, custards and cocktails where an ordinary extract gets lost. Use half as much of a double-fold, and give it twelve months rather than six.
Which alcohol. Vodka, because it tastes of nothing and lets the vanilla do the talking. 40% is ideal — enough alcohol to pull the vanillin out efficiently, enough water still in the mix to carry the aromatics that alcohol alone won’t. Brandy, bourbon or dark rum all work and make a lovely extract for fruitcakes and puddings, but you’ll taste the spirit as well as the vanilla.
Where to buy beans. Never in a supermarket tube — that’s the dearest vanilla in the country. Buy extract grade by weight from a bulk supplier. Extract grade is drier and more blemished than gourmet grade, which means more vanillin per gram and a much lower price, and none of it matters once it’s chopped. 50g is about 15 to 30 beans depending on size. We use Natural Vanilla Store in Western Australia.
It won’t go off. At 40% alcohol nothing can grow in the jar — no mould, no bacteria, nothing. After a year the beans soften, go limp and shed fibres into the liquid, which looks alarming and is completely harmless. The only real risk is a piece of bean sitting above the alcohol line, so keep everything submerged and top up as the level drops.
The annual clean-out. A bean is spent after about twelve months. Past that it stops giving vanillin and starts leaching woody, papery notes. Once a year, tip the whole jar through a sieve into a jug, discard the old pieces, wash the jar, pour the extract back, add fresh chopped beans and top up with vodka. The liquid itself never gets thrown out — it only improves. It’s the beans that have a working life.
What to do with the spent pods. They’re finished for extraction but still have plenty left for a syrup. Add them to a batch of sugar syrup while it cools, leave a fortnight, then strain them out — that gives you a vanilla syrup for coffee and cocktails and saves buying vanilla vodka. Alternatively, dry the pods in a low oven and bury them in a jar of caster sugar for vanilla sugar.
In drinks. Extract brings vanilla but no sugar, so a few drops in place of vanilla syrup will leave a cocktail thin — add plain sugar syrup to make up the body. It’s also very dark and will tint a pale drink brown, so it suits anything coffee, rum or whisky based better than a clear one.
The first day