Extract for Life & Raspberry Goo

I was feeling really home-y today and after picking my own fresh berries yesterday, making a more than delicious blackberry cobbler, and still having raspberries to do something with, I decided to make JAM!

While in the barn yesterday at the farm, I noticed something called Pectin. The first thing I thought of when I saw this was bees. Isn't this the stuff they feed on in flowers!? But then i remembered nectar...but I KNOW during my biology class in college, my professor mentioned something about pectin...orrrrr...I could just be having a brain fart.

Anyways, I learned that pectin is stuff that makes the jam all jammy and thick. I didn't bother getting a pouch of this at the barn. When I woke up to make the jam, I thought back to the corn starch that I used for the filling of my cobbler and how nice and thick it got from this. I immediately searched the internet for information about substituting corn starch for pectin and sure enough, this was an option!

This morning, while staring at my still-vacuumed packed vanilla beans on my counter top, I put raspberries, sugar, cinnamon, and corn starch dissolved in some water into a pot and watched it boil. This is all it takes to make homemade jam and it tastes AMAZING!

What I changed: I didn't want to use as much sugar as most recipes call for (usually a 1 cup of berries to 1 cup of sugar ratio) because it is extremely sweet. I never thought I'd hear myself saying that something was too sweet, but it definitely was. I lowered the sugar--so I ended up with almost 3 cups of raspberries and about 2 cups of sugar. I am obsessed with cinnamon so I added this as well.

I immediately poured the jam into mason jars (turned out to be about 1.5 pints of jam) and shut tight. I just tried it not too long ago and it is perfect. GO ME!!

Try new things, ya never know what you can be good at :)

Now you say...what is this extract talk I've been hearing!? Well, I decided to order a 1/2 pound of Madagascar vanilla beans on Amazon and it was probably the best decision I've made in a while. I need them for the next cupcake order in 2 weeks and heard they can keep for a while as long as you store them correctly. When I was ordering them, I also learned that you only need about 22 to make a quart of vanilla extract. What a perfect idea instead of buying a $5 tiny-ass bottle in the store!! (Pardon my french)

When I saw this though, I thought, "Hmmm...it has to be a difficult process and how in the world do you make extract!?" Here is where Google comes into play once again...

Mid-level vodka and heavenly smelling vanilla beans is ALL you need! WHAT!? Craziness! And a must-have...

Tip of the day: Use 1 oz. or about 8 beans per 1 cup of vodka. I ended up using about 3 cups of vodka so I used 24 beans. This filled an entire wine bottle. EXTRACT FO LIFE!

Click here to get some good tips of how to make your very own extract in just 5 weeks :)