An Exercise of Patience
I hear patience is a virtue and I have patience to a point. And that point ends every day when I leave work. I'm not joking, after dealing with clients all day long and letting them complain and yell and me and still having to answer them back in a happy voice drains all the patience out of me. So don't even think about calling for tech help after I'm done for the day, cause I can guarantee I will be snippy unless I had a good day at work which those are rare so err on the side of caution! All work complaints aside, I'm normally a patience person but I'm also a big fan of instant gratification. Who doesn't like eating a candy bar on the walk out of the store instead of waiting to go home.
So when I decided to make my own vanilla extract I knew it would be better to wait even though I would want to use it right away. So wait I did, much longer than I probably needed but it was well worth the wait. While bottling some of the extract I could not believe how great it smelled. Honestly the best smelling vanilla extract that I have ever found. And its so easy to make, honestly 5 minutes to make a bottle and then in a little while you have vanilla extract. And if you double the recipe like me you can surprise all your friends with the fantastic present of hand crafted vanilla extract.
So since I consider you all my friends, I will be giving away 3 bottles of my hand crafted vanilla extract to 3 lucky people. So leave a comment or re post on twitter and leave the link to your twitter, or you could do both and up your chances of winning! Please just leave an email address with your comment so that I can get your info after the contest is over. The contest will end Monday May 18th at Noon Central time. Sorry only US and Canada only since it is a liquid product. Good luck and I hope all of you try to make your own extract!
Handcrafted Bourbon Vanilla Extract
For full information please go HERE
What I used
6 Bourbon Vanilla Beans
4 oz Pure Vanilla Extract
2 - 750 ml bottles of vodka - 1 for the starter and 1 to top off once you start using it
In a 1 quart or liter glass container with a screw top lid combine the vodka and vanilla extract. Split the vanilla beans and cut them in half length wise. You can scrape out some of the seeds too and add them in if you want. Then add in the vanilla beans and shake the bottle. Now comes the patience, add in more vanilla beans each month and shake once a week.
Do this for at least 2 months. I left it for a year because I didn't feel like the extract was as dark as it should be and because I shoved them to the back of the cabinet and forgot about them for a while. Once you have waited your desired time, pour some into a container for you and top off the bottle with vodka.
Keep adding more beans and topping the bottle off as you use it and you will have vanilla extract forever. And you can double, triple, quadruple this recipe I would just keep the bottle size the same and have a few bottles going at once.
Please Rate my Recipe HERE. You don't have to sign up for anything just hover over the stars and hopefully I can win my first contest!