Homemade vanilla extract

 So, my long-planned homemade vanilla project has finally been completed! 

It was super simple to do: seriously, about ten minutes to make it!  It took longer to find vanilla beans, which I ended up getting on eBay for much cheaper than the grocery store.  I'm also pretty sure that the ones from the store are more expensive because they're for cooking, not for making extract.  The beans I bought were specifically described as "Extract Beans."

This was all I needed to make the extract!  Beans, a bottle, vodka, and a measuring cup (not pictured).  My recipe was 10 beans to 2 1/2 cups of vodka.  I followed the recipe that came with the beans, rather than the ones I'd found online. 

Now I just have to let it sit for, oh, say... two months or so.  It's in a dark cupboard and I've been checking it occasionally and shaking up the bottle.  The color is getting darker- you can see the difference between my first and last pictures!  I'm going to start looking around for little bottles to divide it up into and then give it as gifts to friends and family (mostly for my mom so she stops using the high fructose corn syrup-y mess from the store) and keep a bit for myself! 

Yummy baking adventures to come!