You can use regular sugar to make this, and you will need one vanilla bean pod. Vanilla bean pods can be purchased online or they can be found in many grocery stores. Place sugar into an air tight container. Bruise vanilla bean pods by bending and twisting the vanilla bean with your hands. Open the vanilla bean with a knife by splitting down the middle. Scrape out some of the seeds by running the back of the knife down the inside of the vanilla bean pod. Place the vanilla bean pod and the seeds into the container with the sugar. I like to roughly cut my vanilla bean pod into smaller pieces to help liberate some of the vanilla flavor into the sugar.

Once the two pods are sliced open, cut into smaller pieces put the lid onto the container and shake. Your vanilla sugar will be ready in a couple of weeks. Every day or so shake the container, to help mix everything together, this will make your vanilla sugar taste good. You can use the sugar straight from the container, and you can even add a little more sugar as you use some of the vanilla sugar. You will know the vanilla sugar is done because the sugar won’t be white anymore, it will be a lovely off white color with lots of specs of vanilla beans throughout the sugar. One tablespoon of finished vanilla sugar has the flavor of 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract.

Vanilla beans should be soft and pliable when purchased. Do not purchase beans that are hard. The beans should be fat, shiny, and maybe even have some white residue on them. The residue is vanillin, and it s wonderful indicator of the good flavor inside the beans. If you are going to use the seeds for one recipe, consider making vanilla sugar out of the pods that you will have left over from that recipe.

Instead of buying more pricy vanilla syrup for my coffee in the morning, I use vanilla sugar. Do you have any food luxuries that you really enjoy? Can you make any of these luxuries at home to use or even to share with others?