Have you recently made something with vanilla beans? Not sure what to do with the vanilla pods? Feel wasteful just throwing them away? I have the solution: make vanilla sugar!
Vanilla sugar is delicious, aromatic, and a huge flavor boost to any recipe where you would use regular sugar (baked goods, simple syrup, beverages, sauces, heck even in your morning tea). The uses are infinite!
The process is super simple. The first item of business is to get a really well locking container. I love my set of Lock & Lock tupperware.
Just take the scraped vanilla pods, cut them to fit the tupperware, and alternate them between layers of plain old white sugar.
When the container is full let it sit for 5-10 minutes. Then mash the pods around in the sugar with a spoon or fork to release the oils. Lock the lid on and store in a cool, dry place indefinitely (anywhere you keep your sugar regularly is good for storage). Shake occasionally (every few days or so) as the sugar can clump up.
You can make vanilla sugar in any quantity. The batch I made here would be the minimum I’d recommend making at a time. I used 1 cup sugar with 2 vanilla pods. You could scale this recipe up as large as you like depending on the container you use to store it in.
Thanks for sharing how to do this! I definitely want to give it a try. :)
It’s too easy not to!