For the first time in years, I dragged out my ice cream maker with plans to introduce my son to the glories of homemade frozen treats. But as soon as we hit the supermarket for the necessary supplies, I was confronted with something that made me put the kibosh on our epic gourmet dessert: vanilla beans are $5! Each!
No sense shelling out $10 in ingredients for a quart of ice cream — homemade or no — so I settled for vanilla extract. The result? Well, the four-year old was pleased, but me … not so much.
After the break, I'll give you the lowdown on why vanilla is so expensive, cost-saving tactics that won't sacrifice quality, a recipe for Vanilla Sugar, as well as the usual buying/storing/using advice:
This article appears in Jan 28 – Feb 3, 2009.