vanilla EVERYTHING

[donnaidh_sidhe]

I'm going to receive a ridiculous number of vanilla beans (a pound of extract-grade Madagascar, a half-pound of Grade A Madagascar, and a half-pound of Grade A Tahitian) in the next couple of weeks, and I intend to make good use of them for Xmas/Solstice/birthday/other holiday gifts as well as for my own personal use, since I hope to make things

Comments

[donnaidh_sidhe]

Too expensive! I don't drink and friends who do won't appreciate the finer points of the Grade A vanilla. Plus, if I make extract I can get away with using cheap tasteless booze.

[zer]

I daresay, that sounds delicious.

-- I got tons of little glass jars with rubber seals in all kinds of sizes at London Drug a few months ago. I use them for spices, rice, sugar and so forth; might be handy for your purposes.

[donnaidh_sidhe]

Yeah, I found some at 3/$1 at the Dollarama just today. Excellent.

[purlewe]

I followed you over from pantry to see if you might be close to let you borrow my pressure canner. No luck I think b'c I live on the east coast.

BUT this is a good question.. and I am right now making brandy infused with vanilla beans myself. I am using 8.5 oz glass bottles with balers on top. (it is about the 5th one down)

http://www.fantes.com/bottles.html

Maybe you could find something similar?

[donnaidh_sidhe]

Thanks for the link. Just today at a dollar store I found some inexpensive glass spice containers that can do for the vanilla salt/sugar. I've been considering http://www.specialtybottle.com but prefer to look locally when I am able to, but unfortunately local sources aren't so easy to find...

[purlewe]

I am kinda lucky in that respect. The fante's shop I mentioned above is like.. 3 blocks from my house in the italian market area. So I just walked there one day and bought my bottles.

Sounds like you live in a beautiful part of the world. I wish you luck on your quest.

[donnaidh_sidhe]

Oh, and also thank you for the offer. :) I'm as far west as you can get without actually being in the water or on an island, unfortunately.

[arwenoid]

Hey, if you're selling, I might be interested in purchasing some vanilla infusions/oils/etc items from you. As long as they're not extracted with alcohol, they're good for soapy things!

[donnaidh_sidhe]

What kind of oil do you use? I'm going to be defaulting to an olive oil of some sort, probably not extra-virgin since there's no point to covering the flavour of EVOO with anything else.

[arwenoid]

Olive oil is the base of most of my soaps these days (pomace grade). So... yes. :D

[donnaidh_sidhe]

Where do you buy it? And for how much?

I can make infused oils with bits of stuff in or without, as well. It might be interesting to have a vanilla bean soap.