How to Make Homemade Extracts - Flavored Extracts - Baking Basics

today I want to show you how to make homemade extracts as part of my baking basics series and I want to share a few tips with you so that when you make these extracts they will turn out as good as what you can buy at the grocery store it's not better hi sweet friends I'm Mary and welcome to Mary's nest where I teach traditional cooking skills for making nutrient-dense foods like bone broths ferment sourdough and more so if you enjoy learning about those things consider subscribing to my channel and don't forget to click on the little notification bell below that will let you know every time I upload a new video now the extracts that we're gonna be making are coffee chocolate cinnamon almond coconut mint and the three different citrus ones will make orange extract lime extract and lemon extract and I'll also go over with you about making vanilla extract now I have a video where I made vanilla extract now I'll link to it in the I cards and in the description below but I'll also just give you a quick overview of how I made that in case you don't get a chance to get over to that other video now making vanilla extract is very easy basically what I did was take ten vanilla beans I like to cut mine in half and then I like to split them you don't have to do that but I find that it releases the beans into the extract and that makes for a very nice flavor as well as a nice presentation if you're baking with it and you get a few little specks of the vanilla beans throughout your bake good so this is a leader size jar you could use a quart size jar it's not an exact science so don't worry but you want about ten beans and somewhere between 3 to 4 cups of alcohol that you're going to pour in here and I like to use vodka because it's odorless and colorless and flavorless and so it really lets the aroma and the taste of the beans of the vanilla beans come through and then at that point all you want to do is take your vanilla extract in the making put it into a pantry or a cabinet out of direct sunlight and let it steep for six months after six months you're just gonna want to open it up give it a little stir and take out and decant into your bottle as much as you need and then you're gonna top this batch off with more vodka close it up put it into your pantry or cabinet and let that steep for another six months vanilla beans are wonderful and they will really keep giving off a lot of flavor for a long time so you can keep decanting what you need after six months topping it off putting it back in and your bedroo your cabinet wherever let it steep take it out again after six months fill up your bottle and so on and so forth that's why I like to call vanilla extract perpetual vanilla extract because you really can keep topping it off and continue to get a really great vanilla extract so you really get your money's worth out of the cost of the vanilla beans and I want to share something interesting with you that I read about the famous cookbook author Anna Garden and she said that her vanilla extract has been going strong for 25 years so I find that pretty amazing if they can last that long and that certainly warrants being called perpetual vanilla extract now when I make vanilla extract I like to make a lot but in the case of these specialty extracts I like to make a smaller amount so instead of a leader or a quart size jar I'm going to use a pint sized jar and a pint is two cups or 16 ounces but it's not an exact science so any joy that you have that's in this range will work fine this is just a canning jar now when I make coffee extract I like to use Italian espresso beans they're nice and strong and they make a really rich flavorful coffee extract but if you can't find espresso beans don't worry you can use other coffee beans as well but what I would recommend is that you look for maybe a dark roast a French dark roast bean or something along those lines something that's a dark roast now fall you can find as a light roast coffee bean or a medium roast coffee bean you can certainly use that however the extract that you'll make will be lighter in flavor and you may have to let it steep longer to achieve the coffee flavor that you're looking for now with coffee beans and especially these espresso beans I'm going to fill this jar halfway up now if you're using dark roast beans you want to just fill it also halfway up just like we are with the espresso beans if you're using a light or medium roast you'll want to fill it a little more maybe 3/4 of the way up and now all we're going to do is fill this jar with vodka and then when you fill your jar with the vodka you want to make sure that you just fill it up to the point where you leave about a inch of head space from the rim and then you just want to put your lid onto your jar in this case I'm just going to use the canning lid and the canning ring that came with the jar but you can also use these storage lids that are made for canning jars or whatever lid that you have with the jar that you're using and you just want to give it a little little shake just to make sure that everything is saturated with the vodka and then you're going to set this aside into your pantry or your cabinet where it can steep for at least six to eight weeks then between six and eight weeks you want to check it and see how the coffee flavor is developing it may be to your liking and it may be ready to use however if you want a really rich coffee flavor very similar to the coffee extract that you would buy at the grocery store I highly recommend that you let this steep for about six months now with the espresso beans it may take a little shorter time than that to get to where you really like it but if you are using a light or medium roast I would definitely recommend that you let it go the full six months and then once you like the coffee flavor of your extract you'll just want to open it up and take out what you want and decant it into any type of bottle you want if you make a lot of coffee extract you can use something like this but as I said I tend to make smaller amounts so I'll decant it into a little bottle like this which is about two ounces and more in line with these sizes that you would buy at the grocery store for these specialty extracts and I'll put links in the description below to all these different types of bottles but definitely look for them at your local grocery store or kitchen store because they often carry a lot of this but if you can't find it I'll definitely put a link in the description below then you're gonna want to top this off with a little more vodka just to fill out leaving the inch headspace put your lid back on put it back in your pantry or cupboard now is this perpetual like vanilla beans I don't think so and the reason is coffee beans and we'll also discuss this when we talk about the nuts and the cacao beans for making chocolate extract have fat in them and yes they are being preserved to a certain extent in the alcohol but as you'll see you know a lot do float to the top and even though to a certain extent they're saturated with the alcohol and you are turning them up and down periodically as you might remember over the six to eight weeks or longer if you go the six months but I always worry about rancidity when anything I'm using contains fat so I think you can get a second batch out of out of the coffee beans but after the one year period taste this and make sure that it still has that nice fresh true coffee flavor and hasn't taken on any bit of a rancidity flavor as long as it's still tasting of a very nice pure coffee flavor you can continue to use it to make coffee extract now we'll move on to making the chocolate extract but before we do that I want to mention one thing some of you wrote to me when I made the vanilla extract saying that was there a way to make extracts where you didn't have to use alcohol and yes there is and my sweet friend Heidi over at rain country homestead shows how to make homemade extracts that where you don't use alcohol she uses a combination of glycerin and water or she has a very low-alcohol version where she uses glycerin and her homemade wine which has a very low alcohol content almost something along the lines of maybe making a homemade kombucha so I'll put a link to her channel and those videos where she shows how to make these homemade extracts with glycerin so that you can head on over there and visit with her if that's something that you're interested in but one thing I want to mention about using alcohol in making a homemade extract is that generally when you use an extract you're using a very small amount and then you're generally baking it and so hopefully that small little bit of alcohol is cooking off and it's also spread over the entire baked good so hopefully there's not too much alcohol in that now to make chocolate extract we want to use cacao beans and these are crushed cacao beans if you can get them crushed all the better because that really helps release the chocolate flavor and something that I want to mention about these being crushed in relation to making the coffee extract that we just made you can use ground coffee fresh coffee not one that's been spent not one that's been used to already make coffee but you can use coffee grounds to make a coffee extract the only I guess little drawback is that when you go to strain it it can be a little bit more of a challenge than if you've actually got the whole coffee beans and so you've run a very tight fine mesh sieve to strain it or you may have to strain it through a flour sack towel but I wanted to mention that because I didn't mention that when we were making the coffee extract so if all you can get is ground coffee you can still make a coffee extract but getting back to the cacao beans the crushed cacao beans that we have here what we're going to do is just fill our jar about half way up very similar to what we did with the coffee beans and then this is going to give a wonderful flavor especially with them being crushed like this if you have the whole cacao beans you can definitely put those in as well but again with the cacao bay means you may the whole cacao beans you may want to go 3/4 of the way up so we're just going to go half way up since we've got these crushed cacao beans and then we're just going to follow through like we did with the coffee extract we're just going to fill this with vodka up to within as I said an int about an inch or so of headspace at the very top then you just want to put your lid on nice and tight and again give it a good shake and then you're going to find a nice dark place in your pantry or your cupboard and let this steep again for about six to eight weeks then you're going to want to check it and see if you like the coffee flavor at that point now with cacao beans I find this to be very similar as with the coffee beans and the vanilla extract I do find that if you're willing to wait and let this go six months you are going to have an amazing chocolate extract but you will also find that somewhere between that six to eight week point it is going to have a nice chocolate flavor but at six months it's a lot more intense and reminds me a lot more of what you can find at the grocery store and once it's - the chocolate flavor that you like you're going to want to decant that which you want to use and again top it off with vodka but like with the coffee beans cacao beans do contain some fat and so you do want to be careful and make sure that you're not getting any signs of rancidity so always in your second batch give it a taste make sure that it still has that nice pure chocolate flavor and you're all set and you can just keep going with it now we'll move on to making cinnamon extract and what I like to do with this is take the cinnamon sticks and fill a jar with them and I like to fill the whole jar and this is what's going to really give this a lovely cinnamon flavor and as with the others we're just going to fill this up to within an inch of head space from the rim and then we'll put the cap on we just gives us a good little shake get that all distributed nicely throughout the jar and again check it at six to eight weeks now it's cinnamon you may find within that six to eight week period that it's actually quite nice so you may be ready to decant it at that point however if you want it a little stronger check it at three months and to four months five so on and so forth and cinnamon in many ways is very similar to the vanilla bean this I think can almost become a perpetual homemade extract take out what you need decant it top it off with more vodka put it back in your pantry check it again in another six weeks if you use a lot of cinnamon extract whatever the case may be or just leave it undisturbed and let it let it steep it will get a little stronger over time which will mean that whatever recipe you're call you're using that's calling for a cinnamon extract you'll just need to use a little less this you'll never have to buy cinnamon extract again this will really last now we'll get ready to make almond extract now with almond extract you're going to want a slivered almonds that have had the peels removed and the reason that you don't want to have the peel on your almond is because the almond peel contains tannins and tannins will make your extract bitter and you want to get the freshest almonds as possible if you're really enthusiastic you can buy them in the shell you can crack them you can blanch them to get the skins off and go from there but if you're not that enthusiastic which I completely understand you can just buy the slivered almonds just make sure that you get nice fresh ones now making a good quality almond extract can be a little bit of a challenge you're going to need quite a few almonds and we're going to fill this jar completely and now we'll just do the same and go ahead and top this jar off with the vodka and get your lid on and give it a good shake now in my humble opinion the is gonna take six months I find that after six to eight weeks the almond flavor is going to be very mild but certainly you know test it and see if you like it but I find that to get that true good almond flavor like an almond extract from the grocery store you're gonna want to let this steep in your pantry or cupboard in the dark for about six months and when you remember just come and give it a shake like this now again as we discussed with the coffee beans and the cacao beans anything that has fat in it you do want to also continue to check this as you make ongoing batches of almond extract that it still has a nice almond flavor and has not taken on a rancidity flavor but just like how nuts stay fresh and a fruitcake it seems to last forever because it's been saturated with rum the nuts will stay pretty fresh being submerged in the in the vodka but again just to be on the safe side always give it a little taste and make sure that it still has that nice fresh almond flavor before you go and proceed adding additional vodka to it after you've decanted what you want next we're going to make coconut extract this is really a nice extract and I've got shredded unsweetened coconut here now you can also use the coconut if they're called coconut flakes coconut chips but if you use those then you want to fill the jar up to the top with a shredded like this we only need to fill the jar about halfway and then again we're just going to top this off with the vodka and bring it up to about an inch of leave about an inch of headspace and then live on tight and give it a good shake to get all that coconut saturated with the vodka now this look very similar to the cinnamon at about six to eight weeks I think you're going to start noticing a very nice coconut flavor especially if you use the shredded coconut and you may be ready to decant it at that point then you can certainly if you want it stronger see how it is a three four five and six months most extracts at six they're gonna be perfect and very similar to what you're gonna find at the grocery store but you know check it because it may be to your liking at six to eight weeks and then again coconut does contain fat so when you decant what you want before you add it make sure that it's fresh and it will be you know at the even up to that six mark six-month point but then when you go to do your second batch and then maybe you're checking it you know weeks later or months later or even up to a year later make sure that when a year from your actual start date from the first batch make sure to taste it and and that it still has that lovely fresh nice coconut flavor to it and that it's not taken on anything that tastes bitter or rancid yes there's the overtones of the of the alcohol the strongness of that flavor but the coconut flavor should come through and it should be pleasant and not bitter and not with any taste or smell of rancidity and if it's tastes and smells fine then go ahead add more vodka put it back into your cupboard or pantry and let it steep for you know starting six to eight weeks and going forward from that and just checking as you may need more now we're gonna get ready to make the mint extract and this is peppermint but you can use any mint that you like peppermint is my favorite but before we get started with that I want to mention something about all of these extracts that we're making today if for any reason you have one of these extracts sitting in your pantry with the solids in them and you find that you really don't need to decant any after six months or at a maximum after a year then what you'll want to do is strain out the solids and the reason that you want to do this is that if you're not removing some to decant and refreshing it with more vodka the extract that you have sitting in there with the vodka and the solids and nothing being removed nothing being reacted might become overly strong in flavor or the contents like the cacao beans or the cocoa beans or especially the almonds and the coconut may begin to degrade so if you find going up to a year that you've not decanted any of them then strain them out and decant them into a bottle and they basically will last forever now even though it's unlikely that the cinnamon sticks are not going to degrade in quality they will continue to make that extract become very strong in flavor if you're not removing some to decant to use and then topping it off with fresh vodka so even with the cinnamon if you find after six months to a year that you're you're still got the solids in there and you're not decanting it then you do want to strain out the cinnamon sticks and you can't just the liquid as you did with the others and then put that away in your pantry and you'll have that wonderful cinnamon extract along with all your other extracts that as I said will pretty much last indefinitely okay so now on to peppermint extract now you need a good amount of peppermint to make pepper or mint any mint that you like to make mint extract and if you can grow it like I can grow it here in Central Texas basically all year long that's wonderful if not try to look for it at your farmers market because you're probably going to be able to buy a nice big bunch for a relatively reasonable price sometimes at the grocery store it's a little bit of a small package and you know it can run upwards of maybe three dollars and so you don't want to you don't want to have to spend too much money but if you can grow it and mint grows like a weed so make mint extract at that time of year when you may actually be able to grow grow mint in your climate and you're really basically looking for a good handful that you can really mash into your jar and using the stems is fine too so we're just going to go ahead and get this in here it smells lashes I love peppermint and then once we get this oil in you can just mash it down with your hands or if you have you know some little tart masher like this none of it's not called a tart measure but a little tart maker you can just give that a little push like that you can use a wooden spoon or your hand just to kind of sort of break up some of the or compress them and break them up at the same time to release some of their oils and again we're just going to fill this with vodka and as I said you just want to put in a good amount that basically comes up to you know when you're putting in the mint you basically want to you know fill the jar with it yes when you tamp it down it's going to release some of the oils it's going to make about a half a cup but then as you see it's kind of going to spring back up after you do that but that's about how much of the mint that you want you want a substantial amount and again we're just going to fill this with the vodka up to about within an inch of head space from the rim and then your tight lid a good shake and it's all ready to go into your pantry or cover it now mint extract is wonderful and you will find when you check this at six to eight weeks it's going to smell very minty and it's going to have taken on a nice mint flavor so you often don't need to wait six months for your mint extract to be ready if that's six to eight weeks you find it's not strong enough maybe give it another few more weeks but keep checking it because often at six months it can be very very strong now something I want to mention about the mint extract so that you know what to expect and you don't become concerned you may see a change in the color of the mint even though it is preserved in the alcohol it may become paler or sometimes a little darker it really depends but it may change in color that's okay but one thing I do want to mention is as with the other extracts if you find after you de can to your first batch of mint extract and you top it off with fresh vodka and then maybe you decant again some point when you need a little more after one year if you're not decanting it and topping it off with more vodka I do remove to recommend removing the the mint because the mint will start even though it's preserved in alcohol it will start to degrade a little so this really I find is the most important one at some point at that year point to remove the mint and then you can go ahead and add in some fresh mint and it'll be fine and you're basically kind of going along starting the process all over again but you still you have the base of your original mint extract but you've put in fresh mint I think that that is a tip that will really make your your mint extract very nice very flavorful and a nice color for a long period of time if you refresh that mint every year now next we're going to move on to making our citrus extracts and they're all made relatively similarly but before we do that I want to mention as I shared with you after a year if you find you're not decanting and refreshing with more vodka and it's time to strain the solids what do you do with the solids you know me I don't like to waste anything so I've got some ideas for you if you find after one year they're not still smell fresh you're not getting a smell of rancidity if you taste them they're definitely going to be you know home vodka-soaked so they're gonna have that little bit of strong flavor but these can be perfect for adding to a fruitcake and the same with coconut if you're making any kind of either dark or light fruitcake and you want to add coconut to it and these are fruitcakes that you're going to be infusing with rum or whiskey or other alcohol using the vodka soaked vodka soaked coconut is also perfect to add to any of that those types of baked goods and as to the cinnamon it also too is going to be vodka soaked so you can dry this you can dry this in your oven or if you have a dehydrator and then you can grind it into a powder that oh you know again work perfectly with the nuts and the coconut for your fruitcake and as for the coffee beans and the cacao beans they can also be dried in the oven or dehydrated and ground up and used for adult only coffee or chocolate drinks and the mint even after a year will still have a minty aroma to it so you can dry this also grind it up use it in or just you know it'll crackle up once you dry it and use it in a potpourri now citrus extracts are made in the same way and it's very easy I've got limes lemons and oranges here you could also add grapefruits or tangerines whatever citrus you want whatever type of extract flavor you're looking for the techniques going to be the same if you can get organic citrus great if not don't worry you can get regular citrus and I like whenever I buy citrus that's not organic and I know I'm gonna be using the zest and the peels whatever the case may be I like to give it a little wash with a baking soda and vinegar mixture and it'll froth up and give it a good scrub and then rinse it well and hopefully that helps get rid of a little or a lot I don't know exactly but a little a little help in terms of getting rid of some of the pesticides now I've just got a potato peeler here you can also use a little sharp knife whatever you've got on hand what you want to do is you want to make sure that you're just getting the zest you don't want to get any of the pith because that'll make your extract taste bitter and if you're using a knife just do the best that you can and then if you get some of the pith when you're cutting just scrape it off with the knife but this is exactly what you're looking for I'll overlay a picture so you can see exactly what this looks like but just do the best that you can and just continue removing the zest until you get enough oops to fill the whole jar because again you could go half way up but I really find that if you're willing to take the time and fill the whole jar with zest you're gonna get a nice rich citrus extract you're going to get an extract that really has the orange or the lemon or the lime flavor and it's going to be much more similar to what you those Strong's extracts that you get at the grocery store now as you zest all of these and you start to fill out the oranges and you start filling up your jar what you can do with your orange is just cut off the ends and then what we're going to do is remove the pith I just have a little paring knife here and we're just going to do our best to just go around like this and remove as much pith as we can now this isn't part of making the extract but I just wanted to show you what to do with the orange in case you're making this and you're like oh my goodness I have all these oranges now what you can do is again as I said remove the pith and then you'll see that the orange orange has lines of all the segment's going through and then just cut in between each segment and take out the nice orange pieces they're called Supremes and I'll overlay a picture so you can see exactly how to do that and what I'm doing and then just put that into a bowl that you can save and then you can make a lovely fruit salad and you'll just go along cutting out all these Supremes and then window this little guys cut out caught it still caught on then when you're all done you'll just squeeze this remaining thing with all of the remaining orange with all of the membranes left behind and squeeze the juice into your citrus salad in the making and that's a lovely thing to enjoy now after you squeeze all the juice out of the membranes that are left behind after you've segmented your orange don't throw this out throw this in your bag where you keep all your vegetable scraps for making bone broth or other broths or stocks and this can help us later water with your bone broths and pull the collagen out of out of the bones so don't throw this out now the pith is very bitter so this is often best left for the compost pile well I'll go ahead and continue to remove the zest from the oranges that I need and I just want to mention that as you drop this into your jar giving each piece of zest a little squeeze like that to help release some of the orange oils from the orange peel will help in the process of turning this into a nice orange extract well this is a little bit of a labor of love but it's well worth it and the aroma as you're removing the the zest is fantastic now this took about four oranges this took about seven lemons and this took about eight limes now we already discussed what to do with the orange as you make a nice fruit salad but what about the lemons and the limes now you can certainly remove the pith like we did with the oranges and segments out the lemon Supremes and save them in the freezer toss them into recipes when you need some lemon or into a smoothie or whatever the case may be or you can just leave them with the pith on the pith is bitter but it's very nutritious and if you're making like a fire cider or a honey and lemon or honey and lime or adding lime to a fire cider you can go ahead and leave the pith on and just puree it in with all of your chopped it up however you prepare your fire cider and you've got all the wonderful nutrients that are in the pith and speaking of the piss I had mentioned with the orange piss that I had left over I would just throw it in a compost pile but you could do the same thing with that pits you could add that into your fire cider or into some honey that you want to really boost the nutrients during cold and flu season it's perfect for that we'll go ahead and fill these with five cup put the lids on give them a little shake and get them ready for the pantry of the cupboard and then I want to talk to you about the timeframes for these now with these citrus peels you can start checking them at six to eight weeks see how they are see if they're getting a nice orange lemon and lime flavor but I do feel that with zest you're going to want to take it a little longer too get that really nice intense flavor that you find with the ones that you can buy at the supermarket so these can easily go for the six months but check them at six to eight weeks see if you like them if you want to let them go a little longer than three four or five and then just check them each month and then when you when they've reached a point where you like them decant them and do decant the amount that you want and then top it off with more vodka now if you are in a situation like with the other ones where you find that you've gone six months and you've topped it off with vodka you've made a new batch and then six months later you're decanting some more but then you're really ready to not you don't need that much and you're really not ready to top it off again that's when you want to strain out the solids and decant the final product of your orange your lemon and your lime put it in a bottle put it in your pantry it's going to last forever and even if you decide that you are making a lot similar to the mint after one year you're probably going to want to strain out these zests anyways and put in new zest now you can still leave in the extracts that are in the process of being made or made and strain out the solids put the liquid back in put some more zest back in top it off with vodka and start the process again but I find with things like zest and mint possibly the almonds and the coconut as well that at some point they are going to begin to degrade unlike the vanilla beans which seem to hold it beautifully the cinnamon holds up beautifully the coffee beans in the cacao you know they do have some fat in them so your are going to have to monitor that but the zests and the mint are the most likely to degrade first so I recommend after one year changing it out if you want to keep them going well I hope you'll give making homemade extracts a try and if you'd like to learn more about traditional cooking be sure to subscribe to my channel and then click on the video that will show up over here it's my baking basics playlist and I'll show you how to make the vanilla extract in detail how to make natural food coloring evaporated milk and condensed milk and I'll see you over there in my Texas Hill Country kitchen love and God bless

Channel: Mary's Nest

Views: 368,484

Rating: 4.961031 out of 5

Keywords: How to Make Homemade Extracts - Flavored Extracts - Baking Basics, How to Make Homemade Extracts, Flavored Extracts, Baking Basics, Homemade Extracts, Homemade Flavored Extracts, How to Make Flavored Extracts, How to Make Extracts, extracts, vanilla extract, how to make vanilla extract, Coffee extract, Chocolate extract, cinnamon extract, almond extract, Coconut extract, mint extract, orange extract, lemon extract, lime extract, diy flavored extracts, marysnest, marys nest

Id: x24iQ2B7dkE

Length: 35min 46sec (2146 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 12 2019