Vanilla Sugar

Okay, this is tremendously simple. You know I like to make sure, after doing a big recipe one week, that we take it easy the next, and it really doesn't get much simpler than this: vanilla sugar. I absolutely cannot believe that people sell this. You know, in stores. It seems silly. On Amazon, I see that $6.50 will get you 2.6 oz of vanilla sugar and $26.15 will get you 3 lb. of vanilla sugar. Well, you can buy 1 lb. of vanilla beans for $25 and 5 lb. of sugar for $3.89, so you could use two beans to infuse all that sugar and use the other 60 or so to do whatever you want with it.

Of course, there is work involved in making vanilla sugar. First, you take some sugar:

Then, you add a bean to the sugar (this is starting to sound like an SNL song):

Then, you cover the container of sugar and set aside for a day or two.

Ta dah! You're done. Now you have about a pound of vanilla beans to do something fun with. Enjoy!

There are what you could call different techniques. You could open the bean up beforehand, which would take another few seconds and dirty a knife. Or you could wait until you've used the innards of a bean then throw the used husk in for infusing of the sugar. That's the most common method, as it doesn't waste the bean. As you've saved a bunch of money on beans, you might not care about the extra bean usage, but whatever works for you. It's your life, I won't judge.