I never thought of making my own vanilla extract

[conuly]

When I can, I do a lot of baking. I'm constantly bemoaning the price of extract, because it's in *everything*, and it's SO expensive.

I HAVE GOT TO TRY THIS.

Comments

[bessemerprocess]

I tried this with some really nice vanilla beans and a good rum and it was amazing. It had to sit for a while to get the best taste, but I say go for it.

[marveen.livejournal.com]

...you mean you didn't know about it?

I prefer rum or brandy/cognac, and I know folks who swear by whisky. (All depends on your personal preferences for the other flavor notes in your vanilla.)

I also highly recommend Watkin's Imitation Vanilla--it's a blend of the Real Thing with imitation, hence the name, but you can often buy it for less than a dollar an ounce, which is cheap no matter how you slice it.

I further enhance things by using 50% homemade extract and 50% Watkins.

[conuly]

No. No, I didn't.

Isn't imitation vanilla - no matter how mixed with the real stuff - made out of tar, same as food coloring?

*researches*

[marveen.livejournal.com]

Actually, according to most sources, synthetic vanillin is 1. made from lignin (a wood product, usually from the papermaking industry), and 2. chemically indistinguishable from natural vanillin. Of course, the actual bean has like a hundred other compounds adding flavor notes besides the vanillin, which is why cheap imitations taste so....flat and one-dimensional.

(Don't buy cheap Mexican vanilla extract--it's often adulterated with tonka beans. WHile they taste and smell like vanilla, they also contain coumarin. D:)

From Cook's Illustrated: "Most participants in that tasting, including pastry chefs and baking experts, couldn't tell the difference between imitation vanilla and the real thing: pure vanilla extract. Even though we have repeated that tasting and gotten the same results, we've never quite overcome our disbelief.... Despite the widespread hue and cry in the food world about the inferiority of imitation vanilla-experts agree that it lacks the flavor nuances and subtleties of pure vanilla extract-our tasters found it to be perfectly acceptable in cake and custard. The imitation vanillas earned high enough scores to be recommended alongside all of the pure vanillas. In fact, every extract we tasted scored its way into the "recommended" category of the chart on page 27."