Homemade Vanilla Beans Paste

I confess. I'm a sucker for homemade extracts. As if making orange, lemon or vanilla extracts are not enough. Now I'm into making vanilla beans paste. (",) I kept my vanilla pods in the freezer for a long time. Sometimes, I just couldn't bear to use them. But I continue to buy them. Vanilla fetish? Heehee... So I finally decided to use up the beans in the freezer. They were Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla beans. I also have another type of slimmer, smaller vanilla beans. However, I thought that is better for baking rather than making paste.

I found a good simple recipe. But I made a boo-boo with this recipe. Thinking that the weight of my vanilla pods was twice as much indicated in the recipe, I upped the sugar and water. Only to realise that after scrapping out the beans, it was much lesser. O.o Should have just stick to the recipe. What was I thinking?! Anyway, I proceeded. The aroma of the vanilla that filled the room when I was boiling was really good! However, when my children came back from their tuition, they asked who drank milo? >_<" Make some yourself today!

Recipe for Homemade Vanilla Bean Paste, adapted from Foodzeit.

Ingredients:
10 Fresh vanilla pods, beans scrapped
60 g sugar
60 ml water
1 tsp Lemon juice

Method:

1. Weigh out all ingredients and place them in a pot.

2. Heat over low fire till it boils.
3. Continue cooking for a few minutes until the water is reduced and you get something like a syrup.
4. Let it cool slightly.
5. Pour them into a sterilized glass container. Scratch everything from your pot into the glass container. Cool completely before storing.

My proud collection of extracts and paste. ;)  
So what do you do with your vanilla pods? Leave it in the sun or just air dry it completely, then stick them in your sugar container. Then you'll get vanilla sugar. I never run out of vanilla sugars!