Edible Art! Yummy.

Well now, you surely will appreciate my latest sculpture - a three-tiered, flour-and-sugar-based substrate with a rich buttery, exceedingly sweet cocoa glaze.

... not so much for the eyes, as for the taste buds.

Some people call it "chocolate cake", but this pedestrian label far underplays the symbolism of how the wheat made its miraculous journey from seed to flowering stalk to factory powder to grocery store shelf to my humble culinary studio, where loving hands [puhleeeze!] molded it into an explosion of tasty sensations, thus consummating its reason for being.

This is a true original, ... a hand-crafted work of three-dimensional richness, ... appealing to a multitude of senses simultaneously, ... certainly worthy of the label, ... "masterpiece".

Next, I will create a three-tiered, flour-and-sugar-based work, symbolizing the primordial genesis of life by using vintage 1950's egg-white icing and hand-grated fruit of an iconic tropical fruit. Some people call it "coconut cake", but again such a pedestrian label far underplays its deeper story.

Robert, those are Masterpieces! You have the passion. LOL!

Mario and Roberta please stop! I have been out of chocolate (Dark/Semi-Sweet is my favorite) for several days and you too are not making my evening any easier without it! :)

Unless of course you'd like to send your masterpieces to me.

My works are quite fugitive, unfortunately, and certainly would not survive the forklifts of UPS. .... Shipping them, thus, is not an option.

Ok Kathy, I understand. Lol

But let me just share what the inspiration for my dulce de leche was, crepes!

Oh my! Off to the store for Dove Dark Chocolate pieces............

I have worked very hard at making my edible art works to have a long shelf life even though I know they will eventually be eaten, unlike Robert's huge delicate masterpieces, I have structured mine and they can be shipped around the world with little worry. In the USA I even ship them in 3 days time for free.

... tempted to order one of your vanilla bean extracts to use in my three-tiered-flour-sugar-based disc sculptures.

Would this be considered an edible art collaboration? (^_^)

Would I need to attribute you on a little plaque next to the ... "sculpture"?

Would you be tempted to sue me for making a derivative work?

Are there copyright issues here?

Dan T., ... thoughts? (^_^)

Robert: LOL

Mario: Thanks for sharing the video. Extremely interesting!

Robert I give you free use of my artistic vanilla bean extract to use in any derivative art work of you're own and no mentions are even required. LOL!

Kathy, that really was something!

The plaque might read something like this:

TITLE: Chocolate Heaven
ARTIST: Robert G Kernodle, with vanilla bean extract by Mario Carta
MEDIUM: Flour-sugar-eggs and baking agents (mixed media, I guess)
DIMENSIONS: 9" circumference x 6" high
YEAR: 2015
PRICE: $ 60

DESCRIPTION: A delicate blend of cake flour, granulated sugar, real butter, sumptuous heavy cream, and hand-crafted vanilla flavoring all come together in a fine glass bowl to form the raw material for separate discs that, when stacked one on top of the other, become the main structure of this towering delicacy. Granulated sugar, more real butter, and fine cocoa powder then meld into a rich fluid pool, heated over the fires of creation, which then is turned loose to coat the discs, giving a rich, dark, smooth texture, with a taste that only angels could conceive.

Robert: Please arrange for free shipping!

LOL, Sounds like a winner to me Robert!

Downside is cocoa and other forms of chocolate are foods listed as high in oxalates, which seem to pose concerns about kidney stone formation.

How much chocolate is too much? How much cocoa is too much? Should anybody REALLY totally avoid chocolate? ... What a cruel world it is, if the answer is YES.

... from chocolate heaven to chocolate hell.

Robert Dark Chocolate is actually very good health wise.

It's Finally completed, My all time Favorite Edible Masterpiece, it's been 2 years in the making to bring it to market, just in time for the holidays!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/131651165503?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1558.l2649

Pure-Natural-Organic-Ingredients-Dulce-De-Leche-Caramel-Dessert-In-Glass-Jar




Rare Organic Purity

Our Dulce De Leche owes its richness to herds of cows in India that lead a stress free life on land untouched by fertilizers and pesticides, far from cities and industries.

The cows roam freely over large fertile areas that are ecologically pure, grazing on a wide variety of foliage, including herbs and flowers growing in soils that are rich in mineral content.

The high quality Certified 100% Organic milk produced by these cows is then condensed and sweetened with organic cane sugar.

Every stage of this process—the cows, the dairy, and the condensing facility—are certified organic by Ecocert in accordance with the U.S.D.A organic standards.

Cow-Friendly Practices
For many centuries, the dairy farmers in this region have maintained a tradition of treating cows reverently and lovingly, as if part of their family.

The farmers do not separate the calves from their mothers at birth. And unlike most dairy herds throughout the world, the cows, as well as the male and female calves that are born from these cows, are allowed to peacefully live out their full life span.



Our purveyors produce and market 100% organic products with sustainable methods that preserves and nourishes the biodiversity of our planet, as well as the traditional people and cultures where our products are harvested and produced.

Dulce de leche is a sweet, dessert, milk, food, brown, creamy, delicious, candy like, tasty,sugary, caramel, gourmet, good to eat, saucy, sticky, dark, creamy, cooking, yummy treat that you must try!

Ok, I am very proud of my Dulce De Leche Life is sweet! Especially when you try this Dulce De Leche, Argentine made (That's me), with Organic Indian Cow Milk and Organic cane sugar, COW FRIENDLY, The Cows who provide the milk to make this delicious dessert will live out their entire lives unharmed!

Dark Chocolate is actually very good health wise. Image shows half of a recommended daily dose!




I realized too late that I should have waited to eat the second half until after I checked the image on my monitor. Well.....there's always tomorrow's dose to photograph before I consume it. :)

I would have downed 5 of those in a heart beat! lol

I would have dipped them in my dulce de leche, Caramel and dark chocolate, what could be better?

Yes, there ARE health benefits attributed to dark chocolate.

But, as I said, there is a downside. It is high in chemicals known as oxalates, which are culprits in the formation of the most common type of kidney stones.

Spinach, also very healthy in many respects, is also a high-oxalte food. Also peanut butter, sweet potatoes, nuts, and many more, ... all of which I used to consume religiously, until I found out about oxalates.

Fortunately, vanilla extract is on the low side, with respect to this annoying chemical.

The best strategy, as usual, is moderation, ... meaning do not eat a bunch of high-oxalate foods routinely, day in and day out for years, like I used to do, if you want to control the long-term level of these chemicals in your body that could contribute to kidney stones later on. ... Apparently, the dietary contribution IS significant, although there does appear to be a bit of controversy over this.

The enthusiastic wisdom has been eat spinach, drink your green drinks, eat nuts, sweet potatoes, whole-grain breads, beans - great stuff, I was led to believe - but wait, ... ALL significant containers of oxalates. ... Yes, whole grain breads. ... It keeps changing. ... Now eggs are seemingly okay. ... Heart attacks are not triggered by cholesterol ... Butter is not so bad after all, ... and those damn oxalates have now entered the picture to confuse things even more.

Is nutritional science itself an art form, subject to the whims of a particular era? ... Food for thought, ... logically in a thread about edible art. (^_^)

That's very interesting, I was not aware of those oxalates. Why is every thing that taste good bad for us?

"The best strategy, as usual, is moderation...."

I couldn't agree more Robert.

I've heard people say Drink with Moderation. But who is this Moderation they speak of? I've never met him. :)

Yeah, Mario C., ... I spent decades highly attuned to nutrition, and this info was not prominent in those days. ... Only in 2015 did I discover this.

Why is every thing that taste good bad for us?

ANSWER: Because we are never so alive as when we are at risk, ... living on the edge of creation and destruction. ... As long as we keep it to ourselves and not harm other living beings, this is a lifestyle choice, I suppose (i.e., smoking, recreational medication, etc.).

I probably will order some of your vanilla bean extract, by the way.

Great Robert! I'll keep my eye out for your order, I like to surprise my customers with extra goodies when they order from me!

... just ordered a vile.

You realize, of course, that this opens you up to an edible art critique or review by moi at Fine Art America, once I get it and try it. (^__^)

Oh no, can he take the pressure?

Thank you Robert I just shipped your order! By all means Robert,I think I can take the heat. Lol, did I mention I use the finest Vodka to extract the vanilla from my grade "A" Madagascar beans, yes grade "A" when the norm for extracts is grade "B" and many suspend in water not fine booze. Well I hope it meets your standards.

I love to watch Cake Boss to see the chefs come up with neat cakes in the shapes of castles and animals. Trouble is, they all use that awful fondant, which looks and feels like Play-Doh. Doesn't taste much better either (childhood memory).

The ultimate vanilla extract would be this:

Everything you already do ...

plus ..

beans are picked by scantily clad models (nothing under a 10 - balanced for diversity in race, gender, ethnicity, etc.),

only on the sunniest days,

grown in a transparent dome,

atmosphere totally controlled for the highest air quality,

handled in HazMat level 4 contamination suits to absolutely guarantee freedom from any foreign pests,

certified, re-certified, and certified again by multiple international quality-control panels, linked to Cornell, Harvard, Princeton, Oxford, MIT, World Health Organization, FDA and all other relevant reputation-boosting agencies,

processed in zero g ... outer space in the orbiting space lab by NASA technicians dual trained as astronauts ... to control all unwanted settling or other gravitationally induced emulsion problems,

delivered by the finest limo service,

between the hours of noon and three, local time.

Wow Robert! You are asking quite a bit from Mario. All I requested from you was free shipping! :)

Kathy M.,

Even if I could do free shipping, I fear that you might not appreciate the green "patina" (i.e., mold) on the cake/sculpture that might form during the time frame of delivery. ... As I said, my sculptures are fugitive, ... sensitive both to forklift jostling and temperature variations above refrigeration (due to the egg-laden frosting).

As a side note, however, I think that Mario's primo vanilla bean extract will arrive just in the nick of time for me to do a derivative work with it for someone who has ordered one of my own "edible art" pieces for Thanksgiving. ... And I will make a second derivative for my own consumption, as part of the critique process (yeah, any excuse to eat homemade cake!)

I will conduct a blind taste test on my sister, using my standard vanilla from the store compared to Mario's vanilla. ... And then I will see whether I can notice a difference in its actual use in the "sculpture" that I make (taste wise).

Stay tuned for those observations --- it will be a few days, probably after Thanksgiving, before I write them.

Robert, I can't wait for the results of the blind test! In the next batch I embark on making I will us this research to it's fullest to improve on my signature vanilla extract series. I made a rum infused version with this current batch and it was so good, I consumed it all before selling it. I used real Cuban Rum smuggled from Cuba. The batch was so good you could just do shot glasses of the fine vanilla elixir. Lol

Real vanilla extract is really really expensive, isn't it, Mario? Like real saffron?

Yes it JL, what you see at the grocery store is mostly all artificial, even what they call authentic or pure is made with water and other artificial ingredients. I take great pride in using the most expensive,best vanilla beans I can buy and the best highest proof vodka also. There is no comparison in taste. I sell it by the 1/2 ounce vile because it is so expensive. Like saffron, there are many imitation items on the market. I get my saffron from La Mancha region in Spain, it's very expensive but you only need like 4 or 5 tiny strands to flavor a dish, Saffron is the most expensive spice in the world at aprox. $150 per ounce, I sell in very small quantities of 1/2 grams or 1/4 grams. Unless you use this item a lot it's best to buy in small amounts as needed, that is why I also offer free shipping on all my items, to encourage repeat business and to maintain freshness in your reserves and keep it very affordable.

To keep this topic from slipping to the bottom and out of view, I am giving my first impressions of Mario C.'s vanilla, ... plain, by itself, straight out of the vile, not used in any recipe so far.

Time to start facing the music, Mario, ... but relax, the music is pretty good.

First, I compared the smell of Mario's vanilla to my bargain store-shelf vanilla.

RESULTS:

The bargain store-shelf vanilla starts with the familiar vanilla smell, and then begins to take on an undertone that I find hard to describe ... maybe a caramel bite leaning towards sour.

Marios's vanilla starts with the vanilla smell, but it never takes on any undertones ... it remains pure, sweet, rich vanilla scented, with a pleasantly sharp accent of the underlying alcohol, which is fine Vodka, as I recall Mario saying.

I do not know what sort of alcohol the bargain store shelf vanilla uses, but I imagine that this is what causes a subtly distinct difference in scent, throughout the duration of the smelling interval, which is about five seconds.

My sister described the bargain store-shelf vanilla smell as ... "stronger" ... , but she could not say whether it was a good stronger or a not good stronger.

I, on the other hand, can say with confidence that the bargain store vanilla smell is more biting in an unappealing way, while Mario's vanilla is smoother and more consistent throughout the duration of smelling.

More in a week or so, after I put it to the test in my vintage 1950's coconut cake ... "sculpture".

Store shelf vanilla still seems ... adequate ... for most baking needs, from a scent standpoint. ... I will have to see whether it shows any distinctive standout taste qualities when it is distributed throughout the entire volume of a whole cake's ingredients.

I don't want to waste too much of it on a pure taste test. ... I DID touch a drop to my tongue, and touched a drop of the store brand to my tongue, and my absolute first impression was that the taste profile pretty much matches the scent profile (i.e., store brand starts vanilla, assumes an undertone vs. Mario's starts vanilla, never assumes any undertones, stays pure, rich, vanilla tasting throughout the tasting).

Thanks Robert for the critique!

Please at least show us a photograph of your coconut sculpture when you make it. We can at least day dream about it since you are convinced it will not survive shipment! :)

Will do on the pic, Kathy K.

Well, I gotta say, I had to hold my breath! You never know how critiques can go, but I am very much in relief now! Thank you Robert, I will breath easy now, at least till it's time for the taste test. Lol

I would do a more focused taste test now, without using it in a recipe, but I cannot justify sipping it straight @ $9 an ounce. ... The equivalent would be a $225 bottle of wine. ... The most expensive wine that I ever sipped was around $45 per bottle.

I am not complaining, mind you, ... just pointing out my priorities ... using it for my baking masterpiece rather than for my critique fodder. ... Unless it causes my cake to combust spontaneously, I cannot conceive of having anything negative to say about its effect there. ... At worst, I might discover that I have less taste than I thought, and I would notice little difference, and my lack of taste would not be something that I would want to advertise. (^_^)

Your product description is well written, and this could surely serve well in any proclamation about the quality of ingredients in my cake (i.e., fine cake flour, real butter, real sugar, rich heavy cream, ... the highest gourmet quality vanilla bean extract available on planet Earth - okay, that's over the top, I know.)

I guess now I need to find somebody who milks cows by hand and makes their own heavy cream, churns their own butter, harvests their own sugar cane, mills their own sugar, ... you get the drift. ... This way I could charge Sotheby's auction prices for my cakes, ... true masterpieces with masterful price tags. ... "Going once, going twice, ... ah heck, I ate it before I could auction it, ... no sale." [Don't you just hate it when that happens?]

I understand Robert, Lol, Mind you I take great pride in selling the most expensive spices in the world in the smallest quantities, my La Mancha saffron sells for $6.98 for 1/4 gram, that works out to $27,920 per kilo.

Btw, Robert I mentioned earlier that I do carry my own organic dulce de leche, I might be the only one doing this, I could not find another. The cows milk used to make it are from India and these cows that provide the milk are allowed to live there entire lives out never separated from there calves, they are pampered cows and held in very high esteem there, and allowed to graze in virgin land untouched by pesticides or fertilizers, and are located in very far off places. Now I don't know if they are milked by hand or not, but it makes a nice story if they were. But I don't carry cream,I might consider carrying the sweetened condensed milk which is also made from organic pure cane sugar and organic milk.

Thankfully, you are not doing rhino horn powder for the Southeast Asian market. ... No respectable art in that, but I digress, ... since I recently did lots of research on this issue.

No worry Robert, I would never engage in anything so violent as to harm animals or the environment for personal gain. Not to mention the rhino poachers are pathetic dogs, but I just saw a documentary and those poor rhinos are treated with extreme violence by them, awful, awful.

But I do have some contacts in China and I recently sold out of my "Thunder God Vine" and hope to have it in stock again soon. Thunder God Vine aka Tripterygium wilfordii is being studied and seems to have some dramatic results in curing and treating cancer tumors.

Last but not least is my "Horny Goat Weed" this I have in stock and it has noting to do with goats. Epimedium, known as Horny Goat Weed, is an erectile aid and aphrodisiac used in Traditional Chinese Medicine.

My focus is in natural, organic, herbs and spices, that have medicinal values, such as turmeric and garlic and numerous other spices and herbs with dual benefits.

Cocoa powder?
Cinnamon?
Ginger powder?
Nutmeg?

I use all these in my culinary ... sculptures.

I have three of the finest of those you mention, no cocoa powder at this time Robert.

This is my masterpiece for today! Enjoy the music Tango Argentino, the rain, the meats cooking on the grill and my newest product which is coming very soon is my Chimichurii sauce.

Saturdays were made for asado, this is the traditional meal of the Argentine Gauchos, yes it's also my favorite food to cook and eat with family and friends. So enjoy my asadito in my humble abode on the front porch, notice the jar to the left of the grill, this is Chimichurri, authentic homemade criollo chimichurri. Stay tuned because I am going to be releasing my own Old Bombay Authentic Argentine Chimichurri sauce in 4 oz glass jars, all made with natural, highest quality, purest ingredients available in the world! Steak, chicken sausage, pork and beef ribs will never taste the same again once you try this world famous marvel know as Chimichurri. But please, please I beg you do not call it a pesto style sauce!!!!

definitely yes!

I definitely agree Noa, and those cookies look delicious, I could also see them filled with my dulce de leche!

BREAKING NEWS:

The three-tiered, flour-sugar-based, fresh-coconut-covered "sculpture" using Mario's vanilla extract that I made for someone else (dare I call it "a commissioned sculpture"?) appears to have turned out well. ... I only tasted the cake crumbs, since it was a "commissioned work", so I could not judge the vanilla extract's full effect on a whole piece. ... I did, however, taste the icing full on, and, ... well, ... how should I put it conservatively [CONSERVATIVELY, ... are you kidding? ... why be conservative now? ... Okay, I'll just say it.] ...

Upon tasting the icing, a screaming orgasm of vanilla flavor consumed the senses, amplified by either the quality of the alcohol base or the percentage of alcohol or a combination of both. ... At any rate, it was like drinking a shot of fine dessert liquor. ... Need I say that I definitely noticed a difference with its impact on the icing, .. uh, I mean "glaze"? (^_^)

Congratulations Robert and Mario on an obvious success! Happy Thanksgiving.

... just a quick tablet shot.

What it tastes like ...



... paradise

... or ...



... heavenly

Drooling...........

(^_^)

At least, it's drooling in a good way, and I assure you justified.

Coconut Paradise 9-Inch, 3-Layer Cake

This cake is made from scratch, using fine cake flour, real butter, ... real sugar, the highest gourmet-quality vanilla bean extract, ... (most importantly) freshly prepared coconut, and coconut water from coconuts that I hand select with great care for quality. ... I puncture the shells, drain the water, crack the shells, peel the fruit, and grate it into light fluffy shavings, all totally by hand. … The frosting consists of whipped, fresh egg whites tempered with delicious, boiled sugar syrup that incorporates the coconut water as a component. … Each layer of this home-baked cake is judiciously drizzled with coconut water from the drained fruit, coated with frosting, and sprinkled copiously with the fluffy white grated fresh coconut. … The resulting delicacy has a deep, rich, embracing coconut taste that starts and finishes in the same consistent tone, with zero fake after tastes or distracting taste overtones that diminish its overall impact on the palette.

Awesome Robert!, that cake,,,I mean sculpture just looks amazing! It makes me want to eat fresh coconut right now this minute. I certainly am delighted the vanilla bean extract met the rigorous sniff and taste test it was subjected to. I am happy to hear this great sculpture found a new home also. Lol

Btw, Robert you have a way with words like not other.

Mario C.,

The cake that I sold was fully infused with your vanilla.

Alas, ... the cake that I made for myself, ...although quite heavenly, ... is a bit short on the Mario magic, because 1 oz of vanilla bean extract is enough for only one full cake, where you add vanilla to BOTH batter AND frosting. ... After my "commissioned work", I only had enough left for 3/4 teaspoon, which I used for the icing, plus another 1/4 spoon of the bargain stuff (sacrilege! - I know). ... The cake batter that I made for my own consumption used ONLY the bargain stuff (I am surely going to hell!).

As with other artists on this site, you have (much to your business dismay, perhaps) inspired me to take after you and make my own homemade vanilla bean extract. ... I know it'll be a year until I have any of my own, and so, in the meantime, you might see another order from me before that year is up.

Thanks for tuning me in to the upper echelon of vanilla bean extracts.

Quality cake construction is definitely like sculpting, where quality ingredients, failure, and practice are required to get the end result you envision.

Oh, I forgot in my flowery description, ... I also use heavy cream in the batter. ... ["Can he GET any more rebellious against the nutritional-health-guru establishment?!"] ... Here's the thing: ... I myself was a health/fitness guru for decades, and my interest in good health has NOT wavered. ... I have just become wiser about what I have come to view as the truth of nutritional/dietary health -- as I said before, more to do with HOW a person eats rather than with WHAT a person should NOT eat. ... In this respect, eating is itself an art form.

My latest edible sculpture:



... very involved, labor intensive here, because it irequired making the cake layers, ... making coconut syrup to coat the layers, ... making coconut cream to bulk up between the layers, ... butter cream icing to ice the cake, ... and, of course, searching down suitable fresh coconuts, piercing, draining water, cracking shells, peeling and grating by hand to get the fluffy coconut to press onto the outside of the cake.

I used a brush to brush the coconut syrup onto both sides of the inner layers, piped an edge of buttercream around the circumference of those inner layers to contain the coconut cream that infuses those, did a light coating of buttercream all over the outside, set in freezer for 15 minutes to stabilize, removed from freezer, frosted all over generously, and then pressed on the outer coconut.

It's a dense, sugar-packed coconut infused piece of heaven.

It really did feel like I was making a sculpture.

Oh, .... and this is fugitive art, ... for those who might have questions. ... Think I'll fill out my copyright forms on it now.

... and just for fun, I snagged and used an image ... Heavenly Music by adriediana, over at Deviant Art ... http://adriediana.deviantart.com/art/Heavenly-Music-361129196 ... to do the following:



Heavenly Cake

Oh my!

Robert!

Between the images on my screen and the taste and smells that I am imagining from reading your description I am going to have to leave the computer and go raid my dark chocolate stash to try and pacify this coconut sculpture craving!

I wouldn't want people to get the wrong idea -- I don't sit around all day eating these things. ... I am very thin, as a matter of fact.

It's like with anything else creative that I decide that I want to try -- I do it, until I get it as right as I can.

The vintage 1950's version of the cake is good, but the icing is fleeting and unstable, which might deter some people. ... I personally CAN get past this, because the taste is so good.

This latest venture uses a much more stable icing - it's like the Crisco icing you might be familiar with on the mass-market yuckky cakes (I call it "lard icing", ... again, yuck!) ... I use real butter. ... That's what is in Heavenly Cake -- the icing is a hybrid of the egg-white from the 1950's recipe and the buttercream icing of some other recipes (more steps to make it).

The temperature of everything has to be just right for the chemistry to come out the way it is supposed to. ... I had to dump a whole batch of my first attempt at the icing down the drain, because the sugar-syrup part of the egg-white component was not hot enough, and the first stage did not form the rigid peaks that it was supposed to. ... My second effort was a success.

Putting it all together is messy, but once you put on the final touches and clean things up, there is a satisfying sense of accomplishment. ... I just sampled a thin piece of the above, and I'm pretty pleased with it.

My homemade vanilla bean extract for next year is in its fourth or fifth day of extraction. ... at least six more months to go, before I can break into that. ... THAT venture is Mario's fault. (^_^)

I'm about ready to start a new batch of vanilla bean extract myself Robert as I'm just about sold out of the last batch.

Now today being a Saturday and rainy and cold for Florida standards I have decided to make a nice homemade pasta sauce which I'm going to flavor with my lamb,pork and rice meat balls. This dish is really tasty , especially those meat balls which get fried in extra virgin olive oil before going into the slow simmering sauce. I serve this with linguine and a bottle of Malbec from Mendoza and some garlic bread crostini, and some fresh avocados sliced and drizzled with an aged balsamic glaze. I think it's all art!

Currently, I am extracting two 750ml bottles of homemade vanilla bean extract.

I am using 1/4 pound of bourbon vanilla beans per 750ml of Tito's vodka, which I have distributed into two larger glass bottles that have those levered rubber-washer tops that seal tightly.

One bottle is about two months aged, while the other is about one month aged. ... Ten more months to go. ... By next Christmas, I should have my very first batch of the really good stuff made by moi.

Sorry, Mario, your inspiration lost you a customer. (^_^)

Robert ,I used grade "A" hand selected beans and Skyy Vodka, I liked the reviews it gets for being smooth and neutral in taste, I have also made a batch using Cuban Rum "bacardi reserva limitada rum anejo" that was smuggled into Miami, a great flavored vanilla bean extract for baking rum cakes, or panqueues con dulce de leche al flambe, one of my favorite desserts.

Read the reviews on Tito's.

I wanted to use V1 (read the reviews on that too), but it is NOT available in my geographic area, and the shipping fee to get it here by FedEx is as much as the product, so no way ... And I used grade "B" beans, because of lower moisture content, which I have read is better for the extracting process.

QUESTION (if you don't mind sharing your expertise): Do you allow the beans to stay inside the bottle for the whole year, or is it best to pour off the extract after, say, six months, and then leave it for another six months to age bean-free?

Robert, I leave the beans in the whole time, you want to turn the bottle over a few times often, this keeps the beans always submerged in the alcohol to prevent mold from growing on the beans if they are not submerged totally.

Thanks, Mario, ... this was my instinct - to leave the beans in the whole time.

I DO shake and rotate the bottles through a full 360-degree vertical circle, ... at least every other day. ... Those chemistry-lab experiences do come in handy for something. (^_^)

I cut the vanilla beans into lengths that force them to be completely submerged at all times, and so the mold issue is not really a possibility. ... I did not do the bean-splitting method, since I have read that this is not really much more advantageous than cutting the beans into quarter-to-half-inch long pieces. More pieces expose more surface area to the alcohol.

Sounds like you are on your way to a primo batch of fine vanilla bean extract!

... a bigger batch than I can possibly ever use, I would venture to say.

I'm Ready. Eat Me
Egg yolk on a black surface by Vadim Goodwill. Dark wooden background