Vanilla Extract Recipe

How to make it

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• 1) Place the vanilla beans in the bottle of vodka and seal. Store in a cool, dark area such as a kitchen cabinet for 3 weeks, shaking the bottle every week. Three weeks is the minimum, store it 6 months for the best flavor. After using, replace with more vodka. The same beans will continue to flavor the vanilla for up to a year.
• 2) I used a 1.75 liter bottle of Svedka and 25 Madagascar Vanilla Beans that I purchased from Beanilla along with some small bottles to bottle my extract for gift giving. The beans were very plump and seemed to be very nice quality. I split them and scraped out the seeds and placed seeds and beans into the 1.75 liter bottle of Vodka to age for 3 months, stored it in a dark area and gave it a little shake about once a week. After it aged for 3 months, I filtered it through a gold coffee filter to separate the seeds and bean fibers from the liquid, Don’t discard the beans, save them to place into the individual bottles.
• 3) Gold coffee filters can be found at Walmart for about 5.00, they are very fine and make an excellent filter and they don’t absorb the extract. I placed one vanilla bean into each bottle so that it will continue to strengthen in the months to come. Used a small funnel to fill each individual bottle, added my custom labels, a gift tag and bow and I have a wonderful little gift to give to family and friends. I filled 10, 4 oz bottles and 1, 8 oz bottle and had about a cup of extract left over that I saved for myself. I would recommend using a 4 oz bottle; it seemed the perfect size for gift giving.
• 4) Homemade vanilla can take on a bit of a cloudy appearance, so don't be alarmed. Dry out the pods when you are done and add them to your sugar container it will flavor the sugar, good for baking and decorating cookies and cakes.