Today was my Tapioca morning. I make what we call "frog eyes" [large pearl tapioca] for Christmas each year and I always make it a day ahead so it can have a day to mellow. Part of the recipe is vanilla flavoring but for many years a good flavoring always came with a coffee-like stain to anything it got used in. Carole likes to make Angelfood cake using the egg white I don't use in the Tapioca and the cakes would always take on that brownish tinge too. So I decided to try something....
Living close to Iowa where I can easily get Everclear [ the good stuff, 190 proof, not the 150 proof, all I had to do was snoop out a source for the vanilla beans. Locally I find them priced somewhere between $12.00 and $15.00/bean. Pretty darned pricey. Over the years I have found them in specialty shops a bit cheaper but three years ago I hit pay dirt in Duluth, MN where a small out-of-the-way shop sells them for three bucks a bean and they are super fresh beans. So, with a liter of Everclear open I slip 5 of the beans in and replace the cap tightly. The bottle goes into a brown paper bag and is set on a cool, dark, closet shelf and left untouched for a year. The result is a vanilla unlike any other I have found anywhere at $30.00 per liter. The liter will last us a whole year and that includes gifting a half pint to our daughter-in-law who swears by this stuff. Heck, she swears
at me if I don't make sure she's getting a bottle.
Pure vanilla is a high priced commodity in stores and the better the quality the higher the price. For what I invest in mine, I save a whole pile of money and the flavoring is easily three times as potent plus its way less staining. Carole's angle food cakes are testimony to this. My tapioca is also a testament to the clean way this flavoring cooks. Making it is simple and if you have a woman in the house who cooks [maybe some of you guys are like me and enjoy cooking too] this lays out a finished product that will make her smile at you every time she opens the bottle for a recipe.
