Having decided to make many of the Christmas presents we were planning to give out to family and friends (whether they liked it or not) we planned several epic Christmas events.
We loved the idea of making our own vanilla essence. It looks good in the bottle, is very easy to make, pretty cheap and seems posh enough to satisfy the snobs amongst the recipients (you know who you are).
So here we go.
Grab some good quality vanilla beans (we got ours on Ebay, cheap and really good quality) and split them lengthways. If you plan on giving these as a gift with the beans in the bottle it looks good if you split them from one end to just short of the other end)
Plonk them in a suitable clean jar or bottle - Kilner type jars are great.
Add a spirit of your choice (we've tried vodka and rum - we prefer rum) and cheap stuff is fine as long as it is 35% proof or more. you want to add about 230ml of spirit for every five beans in use.
It is important to ensure your jar shape allows your liquid to fully cover all of the beans - otherwise the exposed bits might rot.
Stick the jar away for 8 weeks all sealed up. give it a shake once in a while and hey presto you've got a useful cooking aid at a fraction of the retail price.
When you use a bit you can add some more spirit to cover the beans.
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