Homemade vanilla sugar

How can vanillin sugar be made at home?
Is it worth using and making real vanillin sugar, or the cookies have same taste with vanilla aroma?

A bejegyzés magyarul itt olvasható.

What kinds of things are needed to make a delicious cookie? First of all a good recipe is needed, where the ratio of ingredients and spices are appropriate. Second, a clean kitchen, which is well-equipped, and a correct oven in the middle of it are needed too. If we have these things, than we have to select the suitable ingredients in the shops.

The high grade commodities or the quality are available for those kinds of people, who have thinner wallets too. In that case you have to be creative, but you don’t have to give up the chance creating something much better or more delicious! The taste of the homemade cookies is determined by the commodities and spices. It is inexpedient to pass over any of spices, just in that case, when we don’t like the given spices.

The most commonly used spice, when we bake a cookie, is vanilla. Isn’t it? Well, no. Mostly we use vanillin sugar, which is made with sugar and pure synthetic vanillin, not with real vanilla bean. Additionally, the vanilla aroma can came into question, which is vanilla extract solved in pure alcohol. Let’s admit it, most of us have never used or bought real vanilla bean! Well, I used to cook most of the time with vanilla extract, but I watched so many cooking video (from a Hungarian confectioner, Vilmos Farkas) on YouTube, that I asked myself: Will cooking be more expensive if I use real vanilla bean? Will the cookies have better taste using it? Truly?

Well, absolutely! Let’s see, how we can use this vanilla bean and how we can make perfect vanilla sugar!

The vanilla sugar making process J

The first question is: how much vanilla has to be added to a cookie? Well, generally seeds of half vanilla have to be scraped from the bean, but sometimes, when we make a cookie with cream filling, the seeds from the one half can be added to the dough and seeds from the other half can be added to the cream. If you use only a half vanilla bean, it’s meaningless to close the rest half to the box, or bottle, because if the bean is already cut in two, it will dry. It’s better to grind the rest immediately.

First you have pinch the tip of vanilla bean (A) and cut it in two pieces (B), than you have to scrape out the seeds with fast movements (C). You should scarf the pericarp of a vanilla bean for 3 or 4 pieces, than grind it with granulated sugar in a coffee grinder. This grinded pericarp will be enough to taste approx 200-300g confectioned sugar, but you have to keep in your mind: you have to let this freshly grinded vanilla sugar to mature for 2-3 weeks.

Scraping the seeds from the bean.

The fresh vanilla bean is shiny, dark brown, soft and smells like petroleum. Your vanilla sugar will be ready, if it will lose this heavy and intense aroma, and you can smell this sweet and affable vanilla smell! (You will recognize this moment, because you won’t be able to resist this perfect smell and you would like to eat the whole content of the box!)

So, you can bake 2 portions of cookies from 1 vanilla bean, additionally, you can make almost 300 g vanilla sugar too. If I bake something, usually I use 50-80 g from this sugar, so this vanilla sugar will be enough for more 3 or 4 additionally cookies. Let’s just think about it…. Buying a 50 ml vanilla aroma or buying a vanilla bean? You can make almost the same amount of cookies, BUT the taste! Yes, the taste of the cookies with real vanilla… It’s celestial!

My new favorite is the vanilla sugar made from brown sugar! I mix 1 unit granulated white sugar with 1 unit brown sugar, than I grind it with the pericarp of vanilla bean! It’s common to use this brown sugar or molasses in the Nordic countries, so I’ve started to use it too! It is really good, because it smells like a bee. (Yes, like bee, not honey! It is really special!) This brown vanilla sugar can give a really special aroma and taste to the cookie, but it fits the best to the yeast cakes! Try it, because it is perfect! Regarding the price of this brown sugar… Well, 500 g brown sugar cost almost the same, than 1000 g granulated sugar. But the price of 500 g of brown sugar is almost the same like 500 g confectioned sugar! So if you grind the sugar at home, you can save money and you don’t have to give up buying real vanilla bean and brown sugar!

Vanillin sugar made from brown sugar!

The quality of cookies, the intensity of cream’s taste or the smell of yeast cakes will progress as significantly as you will not hesitate, which ingredient should be chosen: the real vanilla bean and homemade vanilla sugar or the synthetic vanilla extract?