About 2 and a half years ago I made some homemade vanilla extract. Homemade vanilla extract is the easiest thing in the world to make. It only has two ingredients - alcohol and vanilla beans. Most people use vodka because it has the cleanest flavor but any alcohol over a certain percentage can be used. The beans are steeped in the alcohol for about two months before use but the longer it sits the richer it becomes. So at this point my vanilla is a really rich brown color and imparts a great flavor to my baking.
Recently I decided to try something new. I am currently making a vanilla extract with Seagrams 7 as my base. Why Seagrams? Because I'm competitive. For the last three years my family has had a friendly competition on Christmas Eve. The first year was salsa (I lost), the next was fudge (I won), and this past year was mixed drinks (I came in second). This coming year will be cookies but we decided to put a twist on it. Everybody wrote down an ingredient on a piece of paper and we picked two that need to be included in the cookie. We ended up with Seagrams and peanut butter. I figured if I treated the Seagrams the same way I treat any vanilla extract, the peanut butter should be easy to incorporate.
I found the cutest bottles to use at a store called Home Goods. Since they had two bottles I picked up both and decided to do another batch of vanilla extract with a vodka base (I think it may end up divvied up into Christmas gifts.)
Hopefully this plan works for my cookies. I can't wait to start experimenting in a few months
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