Application Guide

berries.
2 cups dark or muscat raisins
2 cups dark rum
Place the raisins in a spring-top jar. Cover with the rum. Replace the jar
cover tightly and let the raisins stand at room temperature overnight if using
the next day. For longer storage, keep in the refrigerator. Raisins will be soft
and plump. Each time you remove some raisins to use, make sure the re-
maining raisins are still covered with rum. Refrigerated, these keep indefi-
nitely.
Vanilla Raisins
You can use these raisins in any recipe that calls for regular raisins. They
are ethereal!
1 cup dark raisins
1 cup golden raisins
1
/
4
cup vanilla extract, heated to warm in the microwave
Place the raisins in a small bowl and toss them with the
warm vanilla extract. Cover and let stand at room tem-
perature for 3 hours to overnight. The raisins will be
ready to use. For longer storage, place raisins in the re-
frigerator.
The Right Ingredient: Vanilla
Vanilla extract is as familiar to the home baker as choco-
late. It is the most widely used spice, with a comforting perfume and delicate
floral flavor. It is an extract from a flowering tropical orchid vine with edible
fruit pods indigenous to Mexico, also grown in Indonesia, Tahiti, the Sey-
chelles, and Madagascar in the Bourbon Islands.
The long, green vanilla bean pod is fermented, or cured, in
the sun in a baking and sweating process for several weeks until it shrivels
up. This develops the vanillin, the primary flavor of vanilla, that is encased
within the skinlike walls of the pod. The word vanilla comes from the Span-
ish word vainilla, meaning “small scabbard,” and vaina, or “string bean,”
which is what the pod looks like, especially when the pods are in a bunch. It
has been used by apothecaries in a syrupy tincture as a stomach calmative,
and shows up in perfumes (remember Shalimar by Guerlain?), candles, to-
bacco, and tea (my favorite is a small tin from France with black tea infused
824