Vodka! Love it or hate it, it’s the super secret ingredient to making your own delicious vanilla essence and it’s super easy to do too! If you’re quick you could even have some ready to give as a gift this Christmas. I’ll show you how to make your own vanilla essence in under 10 minutes ….. plus a few weeks!

You can use any vodka but when it comes to a gift or when you want a really amazing flavour I suggest using a better quality one. I’ve used U’Luvka which is a super premium vodka (It’s won over 60 awards for its smooth, sippable and full flavoured taste) so you know you’re getting a top notch flavour. It’s also got this really cool bottle. Don’t you just love it?

How to make vanilla essence

Start off by cleaning and sterilising your bottles. I used miniatures of the U’Luvka Vodka so I just added the pods straight to the liquid.

Vanilla pods are quite expensive from the supermarket costing around £2-3 for two pods. I bought 20 pods for £8.75  from  Amazon.co.uk and they are big and fat and full of seeds. Even when the packaging was sealed shut I could smell them! 

Take out two to three pods per 100ml of vodka and cut a slit down the centre so the seeds can escape. Scrape out the seeds from one pod and add it to the bottle. Now all you need to do is re-seal the bottle and store it for 4-6 weeks shaking it regularly so that the vodka really infuses with the vanilla seeds. And this is what it looks like after 6 weeks of shaking and infusing.

I would like to thank my lovely friend Cristina from Free Cakes for Kids  for this recipe. She very kindly gave me this beautiful bottle full of her home made vanilla essence (as you can see above) and I have to say that it’s still going strong-  and you can imagine how much baking I do! There’s still some left in the pretty bottle and she gave it to me back in July!

I didn’t believe Cristina when she told me how easy it is to make this vanilla essence as the taste is so much better than shop bought essence and it works out so much less expensive but it really is that easy.

So what have you got planned to make for Christmas gifts this year? I’d love to know!

EmmaMT

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Special thanks to LOVEDRINKS.COM for sending me their cute mini bottles  U’Luvka vodka.// All opinions are my own.