Christmas in July – Homemade Vanilla Extract
With just under 5 months until Christmas, it might be time to start thinking about gifts for your friends and family. That’s what I was doing about a year ago. I am definitely a big planner and had decided early in 2009 to make as many Christmas gifts as I could. Some of these gifts required quite a bit of time and some were easy to throw together. This week I’ll be sharing the gifts that I gave our family and friends last year.
The first gift came about due to a sale on Amazon. There was a great deal on 1/2 lb of vanilla beans. I started with two bottles of vodka and the vanilla beans. Once the beans were split (but not scraped) and placed in the vodka, the bottles just had to sit in a cool dark place. Every couple of weeks Hubby would pull the vodka out of the closet and shake the crap out of it. A couple months later the vanilla extract was ready to go!
I ordered some bottles online and made some labels for the bottles to finish off the look. I also placed two vanilla beans into each bottle.
I love that the vanilla extract tastes so good, has the specks of fresh vanilla beans, and will essentially never run out. If the vanilla starts running low, you can just top it off with some more vodka. As you use vanilla beans, just throw the pods in the bottle to replenish the vanilla flavor.
One Year Ago: Goat Cheese Potato Salad and Salmon with Yellow Pepper and Cilantro Pesto
Two Years Ago: Champagne Cupcakes
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
This is such an awesome idea. My mother in law gave my husband all her best recipes. I would love to put them in a book like this!
This is a great idea! Thanks for the information about how to put something like this together…it is something I have thought of for a while. I’ve loved your gift ideas this week!
Love it! Now I am thinking this would be a great gift idea.
I love this idea! I had thought about doing it a few years ago but didn’t really have any recipes because unfortunately, no one in our families really cooks. But I have been experimenting enough that I could make one with all of my and hubby’s favorites.
Do you have any tips for photographing food? I have been cake decorating for a few months now and have been trying to document with pictures, but they never come out looking like anything special. Thanks!
Jen, I LOVE this idea!!! I am totally motivated to now make all of my mom’s amazing cakes and traditional Russian salads, just so I can make a book like that. Brilliant!!!
What a perfect idea! I’m totally stealing your ideas;)
The cookbook looks so professional and cute!! Great job!
This is fantastic!
This is such a wonderful idea! I have a lot of the photos already for my blog so we could totally do this. My goal is to try to make one for our families this Hannukah/Christmas!
Awesome idea! I wish my family cooked more often so I would have an excuse to make one of these.