This flavored sugar is easy to make, wonderfully aromatic, and a sweet little kick in your favorite recipes or your morning cup of tea or coffee.
These are the ingredients you'll need:
- Sugar, C&H sugar is my favorite which you can find in most grocery stores, although when I lived in Texas I found that it can be hard to find in certain regions, so if you want, you can order it {here}. (I don't like the taste of beet sugar so I only use cane sugar.)
- Culinary grade lavender
- Vanilla beans (any kind you prefer, different regions will produce different flavors)
There's no real right or wrong as far as a "recipe" goes, just your own personal taste so it may take some experimenting with quantities. I combined 4 cups of sugar, 1 Tbsp lavender buds, and one vanilla bean; although next time I'm going to try 2 vanilla beans.
Pour the sugar into a container and add the lavender. You can keep the lavender as whole buds and consider sifting it out when you use it is recipes, or you can chop it up fine before adding to your sugar. You can even put it in some cheesecloth and just bury it in the sugar. Then split open the vanilla bean and scrape out all the wonderful vanilla-ness (also known as the seeds or the caviar). Add the inside of the vanilla bean to the sugar mixture.
Once your sugar is all mixed together, bury the empty vanilla bean in the sugar, as it will continue to help flavor the sugar. Keep in mind that since the flavor of the sugar will just increase over time, it's best to make the sugar at least a week before you want to use it. It's also best to let your husband know what you're doing so he doesn't come home and ask, "what's wrong with the sugar?" :)
I probably wouldn't replace all of the sugar in a recipe with it, but a little bit is yummy. I sprinkled a bit on the top of some regular sugar cookies and it made a tasty and unique difference.
This month we're going to be making lots of yummy goodies, almost every post will (hopefully) have you drooling, so stay tuned for a scrumptious February!
Labels: recipes
