The Vanilla Pantry

Welcome to The Vanilla Pantry, the Maison Hearth guide to homemade vanilla extract, vanilla beans, and handcrafted extracts.

If you have ever looked at a beautiful bottle of homemade vanilla and thought, I really should make that someday, consider this your sign to grab a jar.

Here, we’re starting with the bean and working our way through the whole delicious process. We’ll explore the history of vanilla, learn about different vanilla bean species and origins, and figure out how to choose the right beans for your pantry.

Then we’ll get into the really good stuff.

You’ll learn how to choose spirits, select jars and bottles, start a vanilla mother jar, and make your first batch of homemade vanilla extract from scratch. We’ll also venture beyond traditional vanilla with chocolate, caramel, fruit, nut, and spice extracts.

And because we don’t waste perfectly good vanilla beans around Maison Hearth, we’ll talk about what to do with those beautiful beans after they’ve spent time in your extract.