Homemade Lemon Extract

I love making homemade lemon poppyseed muffins. They are so easy and so much cheaper then buying a muffin mix. Last year I brought back a few bottles of lemon extract from the States for the purpose of using them for homemade muffins. Then this summer my mom bought me a great book called "Make the Bread, Buy the Butter" where the author made her own lemon extract. Needless to say I decided to forgo packing all those bottles of extract and instead packed the book instead!

Ingredients:
200 ml Vodka
zest from 3 lemons

Buy Vodka and lemons. I bought vodka off of Taobao because I just wanted a small bottle of it that I could reuse for storing the extract. Make sure you select fresh lemons with bright peels. Stay away from lemons that appear dry.

Zest all three of your lemons. Make sure to only grate the yellow part- do not get any of the white part.

Put zest into a bottle that has a lid. I just used a canning jar because it was what I had.

Add vodka.

Secure lid

Shake.




Store in a dark place for 10 days, taking it out once a day to shake.

After ten days your extract is ready to use.

Strain the peel out of the alcohol.

Find a bottle or use the same one you got the vodka from and label it.

Use a funnel and pour your extract into the bottle.

And you are done. I probably spent 35 quai on this and it will last me for an entire year.