Whitney Olsen Vanilla Paste Recipe
This recipe can be halved with good results. Use 80 proof / 40% abv neutral alcohol: vodka, spiced, white/silver, gold, or Caribbean rum would work fine for this recipe, but dark rum isn’t recommended as the flavor will compete with the vanilla.
Ingredients
- 14 fluid ounces alcohol, divided
- 8 ounces fresh IndriVanilla beans
- 20 ounces sugar (can substitute with honey)
- 16 fluid ounces water
- ¼ cup corn syrup
- ½ fresh lime or lemon or 1 tablespoon lime or lemon juice
- ¾ to 1 ½ teaspoons xanthan gum (as fine as you can locate - ideally the texture of corn starch)
Preparation
A week or more ahead of when you want to make your vanilla paste, put 12 ounces of the rum and vanilla beans together in a large, freezer-gauge zippered bag. Force the air out and allow it to sit for at least seven days.
Pour the liquid off the vanilla beans and into a heavy saucepan or small pot. Wearing rubber gloves if desired, cut all the beans open and scrape their contents into the pan, then toss the empty pods in, too. Add the sugar, water, corn syrup, and juice of the half lime. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly with a silicone or rubber spatula. Boil 5-15 minutes, until the mixture reaches slightly thinner than your desired consistency (the mixture will thicken as it cools, and you will thicken it as well). It will be clumpy. Using a large strainer, strain the whole mixture very carefully into your blender. Set the empty pods aside for other uses! You can put rubber gloves on again here and use your fingers to scrape off any additional caviar from the vanilla beans. Turn the blender on its lowest speed with the lid on. Turn up the speed until you see the hole appear in the middle, indicating the mixture is moving enough to add xanthan gum to it. Remove the lid. Xanthan gum will clump immediately upon encountering liquids and must be added very slowly to the moving mixture. Add the xanthan gum in ¼ teaspoon increments, dusting the xanthan gum over the surface of the moving liquid. Don’t add the whole ¼ teaspoon at a time or it will clump.
Dust, dust, dust!
Turn the blender off periodically and check the consistency. If the caviar rises to the surface, you need more xanthan gum. Once it stops floating to the top, you don’t need to add any more. After the xanthan gum has been added, blend in the remaining 2 ounces of alcohol. Using a jar funnel, pour your vanilla paste into a quart-sized jar. Shake occasionally as it cools to suspend the caviar in the base. To store, pour a small amount of finished vanilla ex-tract on the top of the paste to help prevent mold formation. Vanilla paste flavor deepens with time.
Developed by Whitney Olsen, founder of IndriVanilla