How to make vanilla sugar at home

How to make vanilla sugar? Someone will ask: why? He is in every seedy store for sale. I do not argue. Only in a bag that the volume is soaked in an artificial substitute for natural vanilla.

Let's make real vanilla sugar on our own, without the use of chemicals and surrogates. Besides, if you ever try such a thing, I assure you, you will not be looking in the direction of those bags. This magical scent can be called divine. And try to add this sugar in your morning coffee. That's when we look at your skepticism.

What do you need?

We will need tools:

• sharp thin knife
• absolutely clean board
• spoon
• glass bowl
• coffee grinder or blender
• clean, dry glass jar with a capacity of at least 1 l with a sealed lid

From the ingredients you need:

• real vanilla pod
• 700 g of the simplest white sugar

If you do not need to choose sweet (sugar is the same everywhere), then you need to be able to choose a good pod of real vanilla. What you should pay attention to:

1. Length. It should be at least 20 cm. Ideally - 24-26 cm.
2. Colour. Dark, brown, almost black - signs of good quality goods. Light brown tones are an indicator of bad spiciness.
3. On the tip must be a hook.
4. Feel the vanilla. It must be flexible, as if oily. A dry, stiff pod is either about fake or improper storage.
5. Whitish plaque of crystals on the surface is welcome. This suggests that the pods were properly dried and stored in proper conditions.

Vanilla pods in individual packaging proved to be very good. In particular, hermetic glass flasks are quite good and retain all the flavor and structure for a long time.

You can not bother, and take what is available for sale. But you are doing for yourself! So look for good raw materials.

Procedure

First you need to get the seeds. A sharp thin knife notch the pod on one side only.Inside there should be an oily black mass of coarse consistency. This is our prey. Gently transfer it into a glass bowl, add 100 g of sugar. Now we grind the mixture until homogeneous with a spoon.

In principle, vanilla sugar is ready for use the next day. But such a volume will end very quickly, but we need a lot. Therefore, we continue to make a long-playing procurement. Carefully cut the pod into pieces approximately 3-5 cm in size. Place one piece in a coffee grinder or blender, add 50-80 g of sugar. Grind as small as possible. Now you need to mix the resulting mass with the rest of the sugar. Including the one that has been ground with seeds.

Pour the mixture into a prepared glass jar. Put the sliced ​​vanilla pod there. Tightly close the container with an airtight lid, remove to a dark, warm, dry place. For example, in the kitchen cabinet. Leave for 7 days. Once a day, vigorously shake the jar without opening.

After this time, open the jar and ... we fall into ecstasy from the magnificent aroma of vanilla! Sugar is completely ready to eat.

Important! Vanilla is not washed! This procedure will remove most of the crystals from the surface of the pod. The aroma will be weaker.

Some useful tips

1. You can never cut the pods into pieces, and lay them in the jar as a whole. If only enough height banks. Sugar is still filled with flavor. But the seeds are better to take out in any case. They can be used for making sauces or baking.
2. By the way, you can not choose vanilla pods by smell when buying. They have a very interesting amber that not everyone likes. Only cut it gives the same flavor that has already become the talk of the town.
3. And remember: a high-quality pod of real vanilla cannot be cheap. This is a very rare and expensive spice, which is long cooked and dried before selling.
4. In the future, after using the vanilla mixture, you will only have to pour new granulated sugar into the jar and shake the jar periodically. This preparation will provide you with fragrant sweetness for a long time, because the natural vanilla pod gives off smell for several years.
5. Sometimes it is very problematic with an ordinary knife to remove all the seeds from the pod, they are very small.In this case, you can use a special butter knife. It has a rounded tip, which allows you to easily clean absolutely all seeds to a single.
6. Another method involves the use of pure sugar and a regular spoon. You just need to pour the crystals into the pod and rub them with cutlery. Then scour the sugar with the same spoon. Together with him all the seeds are perfectly removed.
7. If you are not lucky enough to find natural vanilla of good quality, then buy what is on sale. Even improperly stored pods flavor sugar well enough. Of course, the smell will be slightly weaker. But, if up to this point you have sniffed only artificial vanillin from sachets, then even in this case, you will notice a noticeable difference.
8. All tools must be completely dry and clean, with no foreign aromas. Otherwise, the sugar will absorb this extra, and you will eat buns with vanilla and sausage or cheese.
9. Some sources recommend the use of such proportions: for 500 g of sugar, take 5 pods of natural vanilla. We believe that this is an unallowable overrun of the most valuable spices.This amount of flavoring is enough to make 2.5 kg of natural vanilla sugar at the same time! Plus, then a new portion will be added to the bank.
10. By the way, this spice has a stunning aroma and, alas, a bitter taste. Therefore, it is not necessary to overdo it. Sugar will smell divinely, but you won't have to use it. Bitterness will kill all your efforts.

How to make vanilla sugar? Now you know what is needed for this, and you can often please the household with excellent pastries, the smell of which they will never forget.

Video: how to make vanilla sugar