Vanilla Sugar
Vanilla sugar is a delightful way to infuse a touch of elegance into your baked goods or morning coffee. One of my favorite kitchen hacks is repurposing spent vanilla beans from the bottom of my homemade vanilla extract jar—they still hold a surprising amount of flavor. Rather than tossing them, I use them to craft fragrant vanilla sugar, giving new life to every last pod..
Ingredients:
1 oz. Spent Vanilla Beans
4 cups Cane Sugar
Instructions:
- Place your spent vanilla beans in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper
- Bake your spent beans in a 250 degree Fahrenheit oven until dry. Spent beans take as little as 2 hours to dry in the oven, whereas fresh beans can take up to 4 hours. Once you can bend the beans and they break, they are ready.
- Once dry, allow the beans to cool, then add them to a grinder or food processor until finely ground.
- Mix the ground beans into your cane sugar, stirring until well combined.
- Store in an airtight container.
Vanilla Sugar is great in baked goods and as an addition to warm drinks such as coffee.