My love for baking and homemade lattes has greatly increased my collection of extracts, but have you seen the prices of pure extracts? Yikes! There is no way I will spend that much money on a tiny little bottle, when I use my extracts (especially vanilla) so often.
"Vanilla Imitation" does NOT count by the way. My love for saving money, making things at home, and knowing what goes into my food led me to make some DIY extracts of my own, and it's incredibly easy. The only downside is that you have to wait for a few weeks for them to be ready, but once you get the first batch going, it's a cinch! You can make any flavor of extract you want. Just think: peppermint, almond, coconut, coffee, raspberry, lemon, and of course, vanilla. Once they are ready, you can use them in desserts, homemade creamers, DIY body butters, or whatever you like! I already have massive amount of peppermint and almond extract, so in this post I'll show you how to make coffee, lemon, coconut, and vanilla extract, but I'll include recipes for the others as well.
A note about which products to buy: Many say that fruits with thick rinds (including lemons) do not need to be organic since you are peeling the thick skin off. However, for these extracts you are letting the peel steep in vodka for a few weeks, and that means everything that's in the peel is going into your food. That's why for this project I buy only organic ingredients, even if they are on the "Clean 15" list.
To start, you want to grab glass containers with lids that screw tight. Mason jars work fine, as do these little glass jars I got from the dollar store.
The process is super simple! Just measure out the base ingredient, and add a cup of vodka. Here are the measurements for some of my favorite extracts:
Coffee Extract
1/4 cup whole, organic coffee beans
1 cup vodka
Coconut Extract
1/4 cup shredded coconut
1 cup vodka
Vanilla Extract
4 vanilla beans, sliced down the center and chopped into three segments
1 cup vodka
Lemon Extract
Peel from 1 organic lemon
1 cup vodka (are you catching a pattern here?)
Peppermint Extract
1/4 cup washed, organic peppermint leaves
1 cup vodka
Almond extract
1/4 cup almonds
1 cup vodka
Other citrus fruits (grapefruit, lemon, orange, lime, etc)
Peel from 1 fruit
1 cup vodka
Instructions:
Measure out your base ingredient, and put it in a glass jar that has an airtight lid. Pour in your vodka, put on the lid, and give the jar a shake. Store it in a cool, dry place out of direct sunlight for 5-6 weeks. Be sure to shake it up every now and then.
After a few weeks, your extract is ready to use! I know that with the vanilla beans, you can just leave them in a jar and refill it with vodka when you run out, but for the others, strain out the coffee beans, lemon peels, peppermint leaves, or whatever before you use them.
Any great ideas for what to use these babies in? I'd love to brainstorm with you!
