Vanilla sugar in your morning coffee is a great way to start the day. And it is not just for coffee. Want to ramp up the vanilla taste in your cream puff filling, your pound cake, or your crepe batter?
Did you know you can make your own vanilla sugar?
It is not hard. Here is what we do.
Fill a glass jar with sugar. We have found glass jars do work better than plastic. Maybe it is because we can easily see in the jar.
You will need vanilla beans for your vanilla sugar. Depending on the size of the jar you may need one or two vanilla beans.
Using a sharp knife, split the beans down the center, not cutting all the way through. Open them up to lay almost flat. Take the backside of a kitchen knife or a spoon and gently scrape the vanilla paste out. You will have a thick, dark, fragrant paste.
Place this paste and the split beans into the jar of sugar. You may want to stir the vanilla sugar or shake the jar to mix everything up. You can store this jar just like you would any sugar.
This will keep for months. As you use the sugar from the jar, replenish it.
Enjoy the aroma of vanilla every time you open the jar.
We have another way to keep your vanilla sugar tasty. If you have a recipe that calls for vanilla bean paste, start in the same way. Spilt the bean down the center, again not all the way through. Scrape out the vanilla seeds, paste, and use it in your recipe.
We use this paste whenever we make French pasty cream or a vanilla cheesecake or our fresh berry tart with vanilla cream. Do not put the whole bean into the recipe. Just use the paste. Then add the used bean to your jar of vanilla sugar. You can continue to do this over and over, adding sugar as needed.
For some of our favorite recipes using this check out https://www.forkscorksandbrews.com/forks/