Beautiful specks of vanilla beans are combined with sugar to make a simple yet impressive handmade gift. Delicious in coffee or sprinkled over french toast or scones.
Vanilla Bean Sugar
Vanilla Bean SugarThere is something special about handmade gift, carefully thought out and made with love. For the past few years my girlfriends’ and I have been doing a Secret Santa exchanging our handmade creations and it’s always fun seeing what we all come up with.
I also love my homemade Vanilla Bean Agave Marshmallows which are delicious in a cup of hot cocoa or in a s’more!
This doesn’t require much talent at all, but that doesn’t mean it’s not special! Vanilla beans are pretty expensive, but the flavor you get when you use them is worth the added expense.
This is wonderful added to a cup of coffee, or topped on French toast, or even sprinkled over homemade scones; whatever your recipient decides to do with it I’m sure they will feel very special knowing this was handcrafted by you!
Vanilla Bean Sugar
Ingredients
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 or 2 vanilla beans
- glass jar with a tight fitting lid
Instructions
- Cut vanilla bean into small pieces.
- Place vanilla bean and sugar into a small food processor and process until smooth, about 5 minutes.
- Run the sugar through a mesh sieve to remove any large pieces that remain.
- Place in a clean, dry glass jar with a tight fitted lid.
- Cover and add a label and some ribbon.
I never try the vanilla beans, and wonder can vanilla Extract in sugar instead of beans? I believe it can be done, if so how much tsps or Tbsps?
One year I got little glass bottles and good vanilla beans. I put one vanilla bean in the bottle with the directions to add vodka and let it sit for a couple of weeks…viola, Vanilla Extract. Keep the bottle filled to the top with vodka for "perpetual" Vanilla Extract.
I make my vanilla bean "sugar" with Stevia in the Raw – it's great! But I haven't tried grinding it in a food processor. Will try that next time!!
Crista, I put a vanilla bean in the food processor just like I did here, but I also added cinnamon and pumpkin spice. Perhaps I will post it next October!
Gina, would you be willing to post your Pumpkin Spice Sugar recipe? I love pumpkin everything!
this looks so good! I never knew / thought to process the beans – always just tried to scrape them out. Love the idea of secret santa exchange of homemade gifts!
Thanks so much for yet another wonderful idea! I made these for my maillady, neighbors and guests at our annual christmas party, they were all stunned by them.
Alan, sure I love raw sugar, would be nice!
Kid Eats, love that idea!!
Chrystina, great idea!
This would make an awesome party favor! Simple, and it sounds like it would be delicious!
This is a great idea and a lovely gift! Along the same lines, I've seen 'rose salt' and 'rose sugar' made with dried, biological (non-pesticide-treated) rose petals. I even saw a chef on Chopped dry out fresh rose petals in the microwave in 6 minutes, then use a spice grinder to crush them and then combine with salt. It was amazing just like this is!!
Whats your opinion on doing this was Raw (Turbinado) Sugar ?
Have some friends that love all of those flavored coffee creamers.
Going to try mixing this flavored sugar with non-fat dry milk powder.
I use an organic non-fat milk powder in my coffee when I don't have access to refrigeration, it works great!! Mixing the flavored sugar will certainly add richness…Thanks for the inspiration!!!
Love this recipe! So quick, easy and simple yet super fancy!
I thought the flavor was only inside the bean.
recipes I normally see is the cut the vanilla bean down the center and scrape out the beans.
Myabe I will try your way soon.
Such a simple and classy idea! I love pretty homemade gifts. So fun!
Fizzibear, I put a vanilla bean in the food processor just like I did here, but I also added cinnamon and pumpkin spice. So good!!!
Diane, jealous!
The sugar becomes a bit finer, yes so if you frefer to grind the vanilla separate, would totally work.
Another great sugar for diabetics is Xylosweet. Tastes exactly like sugar. Of course I don't see why you couldn't do it with whatever sweetener you normally use.
Katie, great deal!
I have a couple of Vanilla beans sitting around and wasn't sure what to do with them, this is such a great idea! Thanks for sharing!
To Anonymous and anyone else that has a diabetic on your list, try Whey-Low (wheylow.com). I use their regular and brown sugar replacements and love it. They also have one formulated for diabetics. The best part is that it's a one for one replacement and is granulated. I believe it would be perfect for this recipe, and I'm going to try it. No, I'm not affiliated, just love it.
Also Amazon for vanilla beans. I just got a half pound (about 56 pods)for $28 with free shipping. They fit perfect in a mason jar so that is a great place to store them too!
Cool idea, but that's a bit too much sugar for the diabetic on my list. What about using Splenda? Or maybe doing half sugar half Splenda?? Doesn't running the sugar thru a FP make it finer?? Could I just grind the beans alone in my Bullet?
I have vanilla beans I brought back from Tahiti – now I know what to do with them. Great! Thanks!
I get my vanilla beans at Costco…pretty good deal. Love this idea…I saw some cute little french canning jars at Kitchen and Co. that would be perfect for this! I usually stick a cut bean in a box of powdered sugar to use for rolling cookies in.
Pumpkin spice sugar? Is that using just pumpkin spice mixed with sugar or is it more the 'real' spices mixed?? You have me curious..it sounds Heavenly!!
"simple yet impressive handmade gift"
i really like it. nice holiday gift.
A coffee grinder would work, even a magic bullet. Just grind it until smooth.
Andrew, good to know!!
Anna, awesome! I'm going to do that next time I have leftover vanilla pods.
Diandra, great idea! Yes, there is so much flavor in the used beans, it's a shame to waste them.
Kajut- I recently made a pumpkin spice sugar, although I never got around to posting it but they both are in jars near my coffee. Cinnamon sugar is another great simple idea although I use ground sugar. Perhaps adding a stick for decoration would be pretty.
I love the idea of vanilla sugar! It's pretty and easy, not to mention saves you a lot more money then buying it!
I usually take "used" vanilla beans, ones from which I have taken the marrow for baking or something, cut them into pieces and put them in our sugar pot. There is still tons of flavor in them, even if you used them for cooking with milk or something. I bet the result would be the same.
That close up shots are making me to grab food from the screen….so drool worthy
you can take the leftover chunks and add to a bottle of vodka….let is sit in a cool place for 2 months, and then you have Vanilla extract. I make my own this way.
could you do the same thing with cinnamon sticks?
Like the idea!
So far I have just one big glass jar of sugar and I add my "scrapped" vanilla beans to it and it infuses the sugar with vanilla flavor. Looks pretty too with the different vanilla beans curling around in the jar at different levels.
oh yea!!!!! This is such a lovely gift. All those chunks left over after you sift it…such a shame? They must be good for something else? I'll take any good ideas!
tried using for candles?
I really recommend a trip to eBay for vanilla beans. You can get good quality wholesale at a good price. They last forever and I make homemade vanilla out of it. It was a good gift last year at work and everyone loved it.
I need a hostess gift for tomorrow night- thanks for saving my bacon1
Yum, I've been using a lot of vanilla beans recently and I was thinking of doing the same thing! However, since I'm trying to cut sugar intake, I don't know if that is such a good idea…**goes and bakes sugar cookies…**
hi melanie…just to let you know that domino sugar now puts out a "half sugar, half stevia" product which is really delicious…
Love this idea! Homemade gifts are wonderful.
Could I use my coffee grinder? I don't have an FP *sniff*
Thanks! 🙂
do not know about coffee grinder but I use my mini food chopper that I got for 8 bucks.