Homemade Vanilla Sugar
Two ingredients and fourteen days of waiting in which there is nothing to do. The homemade version is not a stopgap for the shop-bought one, it is better: the industrial sachets contain synthetic vanillin, while this holds a real pod. It also uses up the already-scraped pod from a custard, and the same jar can be topped up for nearly a year.
Ingredients
- 250 g caster sugar
- 1 vanilla pod (new, or already used and thoroughly dried)
- 1 glass jar with an airtight lid
Method
- 1
Dry the pod if it comes from another preparation: leave it on a plate at room temperature for a day or two until no moisture remains. A damp pod cakes the sugar and can go mouldy.
- 2
Split the pod lengthways with the tip of a knife. If it is new, scrape out the seeds and mix them straight into the sugar; if already used, splitting is enough.
- 3
Put half the sugar in the jar, lay the split pod on top and cover it with the rest. It has to be buried, not resting on the surface.
- 4
Seal tightly and store somewhere dry and dark. Two weeks is the minimum; at a month it is better, at three better still.
- 5
Shake the jar every few days so the aroma spreads evenly.
- 6
Use it as ordinary sugar in any sweet recipe. The pod stays in and can be lifted out with tweezers if it gets in the way.
- 7
As the jar empties, top it up with fresh sugar. The same pod keeps perfuming for close to a year.
- 8
If you need it now: blitz 100 g of sugar with the chopped pod until powdered, sieve, and mix into the rest. It is not the same — the aroma is rawer and less rounded — but it is usable immediately.