Make Your Own Vanilla Extract

After baking cakes using vanilla essence for as long as I could remember, I decided to go for the real deal. Sure, it didn't matter to me the smell came from a man-made chemical that gives a vanilla flavour, as long it gives a good vanilla fragrance. The deal-breaker was most artificial products on supermart shelves didn't even give the vanilla fragrance! The only one that came close was the Kropoe-Kropoe brand from Indonesia. I don't know if the vanila flavour listed as an ingredient is the genuine stuff, but it does give me a vanilla fragrance. That inspired me to go for the real deal. But how, and where to buy pure vanilla beans? The answer came when I came across this and it led me to the source.

Yesterday I went to Phoon Huat at Bencoolen Street and finally saw, touch, handle the real stuff in my hands!!! Wow, sure gave me a good feeling - you know, I had been looking for the spikes for a looong time!! And the damage? $10 per pack of 10 spikes only. The outlet also retails a $4.20 pack with 2 spikes only.

Back home I immediately set to extract the beans. Unlike this related experience there was no discernible vanila flavor wafting in the air as I unpack Phoon Huat's cold-stored vaniula pack and sliced open the vanila pod! Couldn't be good quality or anything "First Grade", as Phoon Huat had labelled it. Wonder if the vanila pods have actually been processed?

I used brandy (I don't drink, only liquor available came from a hamper set gift, unless you want to include wines thsat Ethan is partial too? *grin*). I don't mind the brandy flavor in my vanilla extract for now. Putting 6 stalks in a small bottle and shaking it every now and then (contrary to popular notion to use only 3 stalks in 250ml vodka and shake the bottle once every few days) I soon got a dark, ambered-colored solution. I'm trying to understand why will the 'flavor' develop further in the brandy? After all, we could scrape the vanilla beans as is and use them straight away in our cooking. If those beans from the pod already give the full vanila flavor, why will the flavor 'develop' further? I was under the impression the vanila pods we buy are already processed by the commercial farmer/grower before sale, in order to bring out the full flavor in the pods?