Vanilla Sugar Using Leftover Beans
Waste not, want not is one of my key principles in the kitchen. That’s why I make vanilla sugar with leftover beans to make the most of this super fragrant and expensive ingredient. You only need 2 ingredients and 2 weeks of patience to get a batch going – just in time for the festive season!
Growing up in Germany where most sweet recipes call for vanilla sugar aka “Vanillezucker”, I was surprised that I couldn’t find it in stores when moving overseas. Since then I always have a jar of the fragrant sugar going and I simply add any used beans to it that I’m not saving to make extract or vanilla syrup.
The infused sugar also makes an easy yet thoughtful gift for bakers, especially if they don’t want to use alcohol-based extracts in their recipes.
Once fully infused, you can substitute 1 tsp of vanilla extract with 1 tbsp of vanilla sugar. Just reduce the sugar in your recipe by 1 tbsp so it doesn’t get too sweet.
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Leftover Vanilla Sugar
Ingredients
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 vanilla bean leftover or fresh
Instructions
- Add the cup of sugar to a clean and sterilized lidded jar. Cut the used vanilla bean into 3 pieces and add it to the sugar, making sure it is fully dry.1 cup granulated sugar, 1 vanilla bean
- Add the lid and shake the jar for 30 seconds. Store it in a cool and dry place for 2 weeks, shaking it occasionally for the flavor to further infuse.
Notes
Nutrition
Ingredients and substitutions
- Sugar – Granulated sugar is commonly used but you can also use powdered, brown, or coconut sugar instead.
- Vanilla – You’ll need 1 leftover vanilla bean. You can also use a fresh one with seeds intact for a more intense flavor or larger quantity.
5 ways to use homemade vanilla sugar
- Substitution: You can use 1 tablespoon of homemade vanilla sugar instead of 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract in a recipe. You might want to reduce the sugar amount in a given recipe by 1 tbsp to allow for the additional sweetness that comes with the vanilla sugar.
- Baking: From my 5-ingredient vanilla pound cake to German butter cookies, you can substitute vanilla extract with vanilla sugar in most baking recipes.
- Drinks: Add instant sweetness and flavor to your hot drink with vanilla sugar. My hot vanilla drink or hot cacao drink recipes are great examples.
- Desserts: Vanilla panna cotta, semolina pudding, or German rice pudding can all be sweetened and flavored easily with vanilla sugar.
- Other staples: Use this homemade vanilla sugar to flavor other pantry staples such as my condensed milk made with powdered milk.
