Cranberry, Orange and Vanilla Bean Bliss
This extract is more complex and entirely worth the added effort. It’s a beautiful, festive, and sweet finished extract that will enhance the sweet taste of virtually anything you cook with it. For tarts, creams, sauces, holiday cookies, breads and even to splash it in a beverage, this is a wonderful extract to have in your kitchen year-round. It’s especially good in holiday hot wassail or a grown-up hot toddy.
Makes about 16 ounces of extract
Extract time: 2 months
Ingredients:
- 1 orange x 2
- 1 ounces dried cranberries x 2
- 1/2 oz Cook Island vanilla beans (or your favorite)
- 1 teaspoons of whole cloves
- 16 ounces of dark rum with an alcohol content of 50% - 70%. (100 to 140 proof)
- (If high alcohol content rum is not available in your area, use 10oz of 195 proof Everclear diluted with 6oz of filtered or distilled water.)
Kitchen Essentials:
- 32 ounce (1 quart) glass extract jar
- Glass fermentation weight
- Measuring cup
- Measuring spoons
- Strainer or coffee filter.
Instructions:
- Slice 1 orange into pieces small enough to fit into the extract jar.
- Add oranges, cranberries, vanilla beans, and cloves to the jar.
- Carefully add rum to your jar, ensuring that all ingredients are completely submerged. If you are using a mason jar, you can add a glass fermentation weight on top of your ingredients to keep them submerged.
- Store in a cool/dark place for four weeks.
4-Week Update
- After four weeks, open the jar and pour all contents through a strainer to remove the oranges and the cranberries.
- Keep the vanilla beans and the cloves.
- Add fresh cranberries (1oz) and fresh oranges from 1 oranges with the peel still on.
- Add more rum to cover the ingredients if necessary.
- Seal the jar tightly and store in a cool/dark place for 4 more weeks.
8-Week Update
- Remove the oranges, cranberries and cloves.
- Leave the vanilla beans in the extract, for as long as you would like.
- Taste test your extract.
- Enjoy!