It’s one of those things, like bath scrubs, that is much easier and cheaper to make at home than buying in the store.
I used a cup of turbinado sugar, scraped out one vanilla bean*, and added two tablespoons of bourbon.
Spread it on parchment paper on a baking sheet, set the oven to its lowest setting, and let it sit for six to eight hours (the direction said to prop open the oven door with a wooden spoon.)
I will never pay $7-10 for an ounce of flavored sugar again. I also learned I can do the same thing with salt.
Might be the easiest Christmas present I ever whip up!
*I threw away the pod before learning I should have stored it with the sugar. Note for next time!
The past few years, I’ve been making my own vanilla extract. I get a good mid-top shelf vodka (I use Ketel One) and vanilla beans cut and scraped. They soak for at least 6 months or longer and then get strained. The expelled beans get put into turbinado sugar to make vanilla sugar. I use Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla Beans (it’s the name of the beans, there’s no Bourbon whiskey involved). Are you perhaps confusing the name and adding Bourbon whiskey to the vanilla by error? And I have a second batch with Tahitian vanilla. It’s a bit more floral and delicate. I bottled them in 4 oz bottles and gave them away as Christmas presents, as well.
Thought so, since you included baking it. Wouldn’t be Straight Dope if someone wasn’t pedantic about it and it was my turn. Anyway, vanilla is a great project.
You can buy good quality real vanilla extract. Or cheap fake vanilla flavor.
I use beans to make vanilla custard, and to make vanilla sugar as a gift. (Especially nice for recovering alcoholics who don’t like to have vanilla extract in the house.) But mostly I like using vanilla extract.