Melissa Kravitz Hoeffner has spent over a decade working as a writer in New York City. She currently covers all aspects of food, dining, travel and lifestyle trends and the intersection of culture, ...

Prep the Beans. Cut the vanilla beans into pieces that are about 2-3 inches in length and add to the blender cup. Blend It ...

Dec. 31—This story was originally published in January 2021. In recent years, vanilla extract has become expensive. Lately, it's also been increasingly difficult to find at the grocery store. You can ...

There are so many different forms of vanilla: You have the dried, leathery fruit pods packed with thousands of tiny black seeds; thick vanilla pastes in jars; and even ground-up vanilla powder. More ...

Let's face it: Vanilla beans are pricey. Each is priced at $3, $4 or more, and some vanilla extracts can run nearly $4 an ounce. Vanilla beans can last for years if stored properly, but they can dry ...

Plunking a scraped and spent vanilla bean into an aliquot of alcohol is a good idea. (Those beans are expensive, and you might as well eek out that last bit of flavor.) Buying whole, pricey pods for ...