I use a lot of vanilla beans in the restaurant, and I always reuse the pods, rinsing and drying them before storing. Sometimes they become a garnish (see page 186), but often I use them to make this perfumed sugar.

Ingredients

　　Dried pod from 1 scraped vanilla bean

　　1 cup (200g) sugar

　　Chop the vanilla pod and put it in a spice grinder with 1/4 cup of the sugar. Grind to a fine powder. Mix well with the remaining 3/4 cup sugar and store in a jar. You can use it right away, but it will be better if you let it sit for a few days.

　　Reprinted with permission from Dessert Fourplay: Sweet Quartets from a Four-Star Pastry Chef by Johnny Iuzzini and Roy Finamore. Copyright © 2008 by Johnny Iuzzini and Roy Finamore. Published by Crown Publishing. All Rights Reserved.Johnny Iuzzini,, executive pastry chef of the world-renowned Jean Georges restaurant in New York City, won the award for Outstanding Pastry Chef from the James Beard Foundation in 2006. This is his first book.Roy Finamore, a publishing veteran of more than thirty years, has worked with many bestselling cookbook authors. He is the author of three books: One Potato, Two Potato; Tasty, which won a James Beard Foundation award; and Fish Without a Doubt.__