Have you ever looked at the price of vanilla sugar? It's priced somewhere between "Gold per Ounce" and "Firstborn Child." And if you've ever had the pleasure of smelling vanilla sugar, it's not hard to see why they feel like they can charge prices like this.
But if you're savvy, you know better. DIY vanilla sugar is something everybody can do. All you need is a big ol' jar like a pickle jar, except with all the pickle smell long, long washed out; some sugar, and some vanilla beans.
Oh, and time. Like making your own awesome Vanilla Extract, time is of the essence.
Ingredients
1 large and very clean sealable jar
Sugar (lots)
2-3 vanilla beans, roe in or out* (see below)
Directions
Put your beans in the jar.
Fill jar with sugar. (Almost all the way full, not this half-full I did to show you the beans)
Wait 5-7 days before using, shaking hard once a day to prevent clumping.
Use as you would wherever you would use vanilla sugar, or even regular sugar!
Replace whatever sugar you use from your jar and shake it up for your next baking session.
Gloat as you enjoy a virtually limitless supply of vanilla sugar for a year, because the longer it sits, the better it gets.
* Now you have some flexibility. Do you like the idea of black flecks in your white sugar? Slice open the pods, extract the vanilla roe, and grind it together with a smaller amount of sugar before adding it to your jar so they don't clump together so much. Don't want the roe? Leave em whole. Have another recipe that needs vanilla beans? Even better. Let your sliced open, roe-extracted beans dry after simmering them in milk, and drop them in your jar.
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