There's a question that touched on infusing espresso beans with vanilla flavor during roasting, I'm doing something a little different. Recently, I managed to get some real vanilla beans (a rather hard find where I am), and I'd like to flavor a double espresso shot with one of them.
In the question I linked, a comment sort of hints that you might be able to just scrape the beans and make them part of the puck, and the flavor might come out in the pulled shot. I don't have much room for experimentation here, each wasted bean adds 33.33% to the probability that I won't get this right and won't be able to enjoy the tasty drink I'd like to make 🙂
I have:
- 3 whole vanilla beans
- A bag of great Arabica coffee beans
- Highly purified water
- A nice grinder / cappuccino machine, pretty much like you'd find at any coffee shop except it's a single boiler
I want:
- A double shot of espresso infused with natural vanilla goodness
How do I accomplish this? Should I use one entire bean, more .. or possibly less? Can I just scrape the bean and pack the seeds in the puck with the grinds? Is simply pulling the shot with them in place going to be sufficient to extract the flavor?
Should I be looking more at the milk than the coffee here for best results?
I know I could just try this and figure it out (or just waste three perfectly good and rare vanilla beans), I'm really hoping someone has done this and can give a more precise method.
Best Answer
I would go with cutting a small piece of vanilla bean then scrap seeds in milk add vanilla bean skin in with milk as well and steam, the steam will bring out the vanilla flavor.