Make vanilla sugar

June 20, 2008 in Vanilla questions, recipes | 5 comments

Vanilla sugar is super simple, just add table sugar to vanilla beans and wait a few weeks. An occasional shake helps expose all the sugar crystals to vanilla goodness. Vanilla speckled sugar makes a great compliment to a homemade vanilla extract gift box — and it can be made from “waste” vanilla beans.

Here are three vanilla sugar recipes:

  1. I always put sugar in empty vanilla bean packaging. There’s a bunch of great vanilla flavor stuck to the bag — especially if the beans were vacuum packed. Shown here on the left.
  2. Beans already used to make extract still have plenty of flavor to make vanilla sugar. Dry post-extract beans for a few days, then cover them with sugar in a zip-top bag. Shown here on the right.
  3. You can also use whole or chopped new vanilla beans, but method 1 and 2 are more economical.

Remove the beans from the sugar before using. I find the best way is to put it through a colander and shake.

  1. Tracy on January 25, 2009 at 11:29 pm

    What do you use vanilla sugar for?

  2. Tracy on January 25, 2009 at 11:50 pm

    What do you use vanilla sugar for? Thanks!

  3. Bob Taylor on January 27, 2009 at 2:10 pm

    A more appropriate question, Tracy, would be “what DON’T you use vanilla sugar for?” Seriously, vanilla sugar is useful stuff. I usually just stick spent beans down in my sugar canister and flavor/scent ALL of my sugar with them. That sugar gets used in everything, including priming my homebrew for bottle conditioning!

  4. MommaBlogger on June 2, 2009 at 11:40 am

    I let my beans dry for a few days and put them in with the sugar, but when I went to check the sugar, it was kind of clumpy like there was still some moisture in the bag. I know the vanilla sugar I got from Penzey’s was the same, but I’m wondering if there’s a way to dry it out a little more, or if I just have to try to use it up really fast. (I used a whole 5 lb. bag of sugar).

  5. Scott on September 26, 2009 at 8:41 am

    Sounds like a great sugar to use in home brewed root beer. I can’t stand the alcohol-based vanilla extracts, nor the fake stuff.

    I do like the flavor of A&W root beer, which supposedly uses aged vanilla. Wouldn’t mind trying to replicate their recipe. The pre-made root beer extracts just don’t do it for me.