What Do You Use Vanilla Sugar For?

So you know I'm having fun experimenting with vanilla beans, yeah? 

One of the ways I've been maximizing my usage is by tossing my "spent" vanilla bean husks into a jar of plain white sugar.  I give this a shake every day to help spread the flavor, and it smells positively amazing.  If you have some spent vanilla, you should totally do this so you don't waste any extra flavor tidbits.  But the question, of course, is what do you do with vanilla sugar? 

You probably don't want to use it in baking.  The flavor's a bit too delicate for that.  Here's a few things I've found to do with it that are great, though: 

-- Sprinkle it over cookies, like peanut butter or shortbread, before baking
-- Stir it into your tea or coffee for a deeper, sweeter flavor
-- Dust it onto homemade marshmallows or other candies
-- Sprinkle it over your cereal
-- Sprinkle some over fresh fruit
-- Use it the next time you make cinnamon toast

Basically, anything that tastes good with a spoon full of granulated sugar tastes extra good with a spoonful of vanilla sugar.  Obviously, don't go out and buy vanilla just to make this stuff...but if you have any husks lying around that'll go to waste, absolutely toss them into your sugar jar.

Homemade Chocolate Pudding

My first use of the vanilla beans was quite conservative: Chocolate pudding.

(I was going to take a picture of it, but then I ate it all instead....oops)

The wonderful thing about vanilla is that it lifts up and enhances other flavors that come close to it, and vanilla makes chocolate taste positively divine.  That said, if you'd rather have straight-up vanilla pudding, you can use this same recipe and just omit the cocoa powder.

Recipe adapted from Alton Brown:

- 1 vanilla bean, split and with seeds scraped out
- 5 cups milk and 1 cup cream (you can use all milk, if you want)
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 3/4 cup cocoa powder
- 1/2 cup corn starch
- pinch of salt
- 2 tbsp butter

Pour five of your six cups of liquid into a pot and add the vanilla bean.  You can toss in the whole pod if you want, or you can just put in the scraped-out seeds.  Let this simmer until it starts to steam, then mix in your sugar and cocoa powder.  Mix your remaining cup of milk with your 1/2 cup of corn starch until the starch is completely dissolved, then pour that into the mixture on the stove.  Add your salt.

Let this cook over medium heat for about 20 minutes, stirring frequently.  It might start to get lumpy; that's OK, just whisk the lumps until they break up.  You'll know it's done when the pudding coats the back of a spoon.  Take it off the heat and mix in your butter until thoroughly melted.  If you're using vanilla extract instead of whole vanilla, add it at this point.  Strain the pudding off into a bowl or individual serving cups -- whatever you want -- and chill for a couple of hours to let it set up.  If you don't mind pudding skin, you can chill uncovered; otherwise, you'll want to cover it with plastic wrap touching the top of the pudding.  This makes about 6 cups of pudding.

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There's a lot of things you can do with this pudding if you want.  You can make it low-fat by using 2% or skim milk, but it won't be quite as thick and rich-tasting.  You can play around with the flavor profile and add various other extracts, like mint or coffee or rum.  You can use flour instead of corn starch to thicken it, but the texture will be a bit more grainy. 

The finished product can be eaten as-is or incorporated into cake.  You could make eclairs and stuff them with the pudding.  You can freeze it to make some really excellent fudge pops.  You can tweak the type of milk you use to make it richer or more low-cal.  I suspect you could add more starch or some gelatin to make a pie.  You could probably make vegan pudding by using rice, almond or coconut milk, but I've never tried it.  You can also mix up all of the dry ingredients and keep it in a jar in the cabinet to make single-size servings of pudding whenever you want.

Anyway -- chocolate pudding = amazing. 

I put my scraped-out vanilla bean stalk into a jar of sugar in the pantry.  It should infuse it with flavor and make some really yummy vanilla sugar that can then be used to sweeten tea, sprinkle over cereal or baked goods, whatever.  I'll buy some liquor this week so I can make some vanilla extract, too. 

Vanilla Beans: Incoming!

A good friend of mine and fellow urban homesteading nerd ordered bulk vanilla beans to make homemade Christmas presents.  After discovering that she'd ordered entirely more than she knew what to do with, she sent some to me as a blog project.  They arrived in the mail today, and let me tell you-- they smell amazing. 

Knowing that I have quite a bit of vanilla to work with, I decided it would be a good idea to research it a bit.  I admit that, for most of my life, "vanilla" has been a sweet smelling but often flavorless brown liquid you pour into things because the recipe told you to.  I definitely grew up on imitation vanilla, and as an adult I often leave it out of recipes because I can't be bothered to buy more. 

The fresh stuff, on the other hand, is a whole different animal (er, plant). 

What is Vanilla?

You're probably familiar with vanilla from its smell, which is very distinctive and sweet.  What you might not know is that it's a relative of the orchid.  In fact, it's the only fruit-bearing orchid in the world, and the "vanilla bean" is really its fruit.  It grows native in Central and South America, but it quickly migrated its way throughout Europe thanks to being brought home by the Conquistadors.  The French were especially fond of its flavor, and vanilla has worked its way into a side variety of dishes. 

Vanilla can be a bit tricky to grow.  The plants don't mature until they're about three years old, and they only bloom for one or two days.  In its native home, it's pollinated by a specific species of bee.  Elsewhere in the world, where that bee doesn't live, the plant must be pollinated by hand.  Furthermore, the beans must be picked while green and cured before they become edible.  This curing process takes months and is quite laborious. 

All of this is why you're often hard-pressed to find real vanilla in the store, and why real vanilla beans are so expensive.  But the question is: Are they worth it?

What's in "Imitation Vanilla"? 

Vanilla is an easy flavor to imitate, which is why it goes into so many foods (and, consequently, why it's become synonymous with "plain"), but the imitation doesn't come close to the subtlety and sweetness of the real thing.  You'll notice this very fast if you taste a little pure imitation vanilla.  It actually tastes very bitter and definitely smells more appealing than it tastes.  What's in it, anyway? 

As it turns out...a lot of things you probably don't want to eat. Basically, scientists identified the specific chemical that causes its flavor, vanillin, and found ways to get it out of non-vanilla sources, like wood pulp.  While I appreciate the spirit of recycling wood pulp from paper plants back into my diet, I think I'll pass. 

Oh, and here's a fun fact for you:  Many of the items made with "real vanilla" are still flavored predominately by imitation vanilla or vanilla extracts (which contain a lot of chemicals that are synthetically produced or, uh, not vanilla).  The characteristic brown flecks often actually come from beans that have already been used to make extracts.  In other words, all the flavor has been leached out, leaving behind a very impressive-looking but ultimately flavorless trail.  

So What's In Store for The Vanilla Beans?

That...is an excellent question!  I'm certainly going to make some real vanilla extract to have on hand, but other recipes are open to suggestions.  I have several beans, so I can go in a few different directions with them.  Anybody have any ideas they want me to try out?  Leave your vote in the comments below!