Make the Bread, Buy the Butter - Jennifer Reese [113]
The big question with home-brewed vanilla is: what kind of liquor to use? To try to answer this question definitively, I brewed three batches of vanilla, one with dark rum, one with golden rum, and one with vodka. Then I bought a bottle of supermarket vanilla for comparison. I made custard sauce and divided it into four portions, flavoring each with a different extract. The differences in flavor were striking when you sampled the vanillas side by side. If you’re looking for a plain-vanilla vanilla, the vodka-based extract is the most subtle, almost indistinguishable from store-bought. Golden rum is assertive and slightly rummy; dark rum extremely rummy. I loved the dark rum vanilla, but others, specifically children, did not.
Make it or buy it? Make it.
Hassle: Minimal
Cost comparison: To make 12 ounces of vanilla costs about $7.00. To buy an equivalent amount of McCormick vanilla: $53.00.
9 plump vanilla beans
1½ cups vodka (cheap is fine) or rum, dark or light
Slit the vanilla beans lengthwise and scrape out the seeds. Put the seeds and the pods in a jar with a tight-fitting lid. Pour the alcohol over the beans. Cover and shake. Put the jar in the cupboard and let macerate for 3 months, agitating the jar occasionally.
Makes 1½ cups
LEMON EXTRACT
Make it or buy it? Make it.
Hassle: Tiny
Cost comparison: Homemade: $0.53 an ounce, less if you have a lemon tree. McCormick: $6.29 per ounce.
2 lemons
⅔ cup vodka
Scrape the zest off the lemons, trying to avoid removing any of the white pith. Put the zest in a small glass jar. Pour the vodka over the lemon zest, cover, and shake. Let sit in a dark place for 10 days or more.
Makes ⅔ cup
ISABEL’S CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES
“All these recipes for chocolate chip cookies,” Isabel said, flipping through some cookbooks one weekend morning. “They all say they’re the best, but how can you tell?”
“Why don’t you do a test?” I asked.
“Maybe,” she said listlessly, and yawned. But about an hour later I noticed a sheet of binder paper on which she’d listed in her immaculate hand all the chocolate-chip-cookie recipes she wanted to try. Over the next four months, she went on to calmly and efficiently try every one of them. She didn’t rush; she didn’t procrastinate. The kitchen was usually cleaner after she finished baking than when she began; the cookies were stowed in a metal tin. I would eat four or five cookies. She would eat one.
The top three cookies from Isabel’s test were a husky chocolate chip cookie made with espresso powder, from the memoir Cakewalk by novelist Kate Moses; a wholewheat chocolate chip cookie recipe out of Kim Boyce’s Good to the Grain; and Dorie Greenspan’s classic chocolate chip cookie from Baking.
Isabel folded the three together. Isabel would never say this is the best chocolate chip cookie in the world. She’s far too sensible. But I’ll say it: this is the best chocolate chip cookie in the world.
Make it or buy it? Make it.
Hassle: No more or less than any scratch cookie
Cost comparison: Homemade: $0.23 per ounce. Nestlé’s unbaked chocolate chip cookie dough: $0.21 per ounce. Chips Ahoy: $0.20 per ounce. Pepperidge Farm Nantucket: $0.58 per ounce.
½ pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
⅔ cup light brown sugar, packed
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
¾ teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 teaspoons instant espresso powder
1½ cups semisweet chocolate chunks or chips
1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans, toasted
1. Cream the butter until very fluffy, then cream it a little more. Add the sugars and beat well, scraping down the sides of the bowl.
2. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Beat in the vanilla.
3. Whisk together the flours, baking soda, salt, and espresso powder. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in three installments, beating well each time. Stir in