Hey look what I Made!

With my job I have a different set of challenges than most Chefs. Often home and professional chefs will look at what foods they have in there pantry and make what ever is going bad first. At my job I don’t really have to worry about excess food in the refrigerator or the pantry but my criteria is different. I want my food to show off the appliances that I cook on and I want it easy enough so that any one can make it.

So last summer we are getting to go on our annual Colorado Culinary Series and we wanted to make a new dessert. Whether this dessert is new to the world I know not but I do know that it will be new to us. We have a couple of must have elements:

1. It must use as many different appliances as possible i.e. Grill, griddle, cooktop, oven…
2. It must Flambé
3. It must taste great
4. It must be easy to do ala minute (at the last minute)

So we went about our ideas and we remember that we have a co-sponsor that has been with the series for as long as we have, Kettle One Vodka. So we new they would be more than happy to supply us with all the vodka we wanted. Vodka by itself doesn’t have much flavor so we decided to infuse it with something and we ended up using vanilla. We also chose to Flambé Peaches with the Vanilla vodka serve over and grilled pound cake with ice cream, I was able to fit everything I was looking for- the grill with the pound cake, flambé so I will be using the range top, and I will light it up so check, check, and check.( I will add the recipe soon but for this discussion it is irrelevant). Okay so the desert was fabulous. Everything goes how we expect it to and we still have a lot of vodka with the vanilla and we just let it set there, and kind of forgot about it.

Now it is about 6 month later and I am reading on the Food Network web site. Something The Barefoot Contessa had caught my eye. She has a recipe for making vanilla. I looked at the recipe half way expecting something totally complicated and needlessly expensive. I realize that what I did earlier in the summer out even knowing it.

Yes unknowingly I made Vanilla extract. By putting about 8 beans of Vanilla and a big ole bottle of Vodka and letting it mingle for about six months. My boss and I went down and smelled it and sure enough that is exactly what it was. I have since used it in cookies and Flan and it has been great.

I was worried about the alcoholic content in my new vanilla until I read that the pure vanilla extract is 35 percent alcohol and Vodka was 40 percent. So that was almost identical. Also I noticed that my Vanilla wasn’t quite as dark as the store bought stuff and it looks like they add corn syrup, so that was the difference.

I love this aspect of food, we have a great idea, make a great dessert and then have vanilla after it is all said and done!