How To Make Lemon Extract

Lemon Extract is incredibly easy to make. It has two ingredients: lemon zest and cheap vodka. Don’t waste money buying expensive vodka because it really doesn’t matter. Use the extract in place of store-bought lemon extract in baking and whatever else you can think of. A little goes a long way.

Preparing the Lemons

Since you’re using the skin of the lemons, ideally you’d use organic. Anything else that is on/in those lemon peels (pesticides, dirt) will leach out into the extract along with the flavor. Regardless of whether its organic or not, make sure the lemon is very clean and the wax coating has been washed off. Since you’re just using the skin of the lemons, the juice can be used to make another recipe.

Full disclosure, I didn’t use organic lemons. We had what we had (they were actually given to us, which we are very grateful for) and I’m not worried about it.

Making the Extract

Here is where it get’s all ‘free spirit’ and don’t give you an exact recipe. You can search google and find ten thousand different recipes and they’re all fine. But extract really doesn’t need a ‘recipe’. You don’t need to wait until you have 8 lemons, or 2 pounds, or whatever amount a recipe calls. You can use whatever you have.

Zest your lemons, whether you have one or forty in whatever way you please, making sure to take only the yellow part of the peel; the white pith is bitter and won’t add anything desirable to your extract. I like to use a paring knife to peel the lemons, leaving the skin in fairly large pieces. You can also use a vegetable peeler, or a zester. Just keep in mind that the smaller the pieces, the harder it will be to strain them out of your extract at the end. I prefer to keep them large.

After you’ve zested the lemon, place the zest in an airtight container like a mason jar. Don’t pack it in tight. Then, add the vodka. Depending on how strong or dilute you like your extract, you can either just cover the zest or use up to twice as much vodka as you have zest. The more vodka you add, the more dilute your extract will be. I like to just cover the lemon peels so I get a strong extract; when baking, you can start out with a small amount of extract and keep adding to taste.

Store in a cool, dark place and once or twice a week, take the jar out and gently shake it to mix it up. After about 4 weeks, the liquid will be a nice deep yellow and you can strain it into a clean jar to remove the peels.

Storage and Use

Store the strained mixture in an airtight container in a cool dark place. The alcohol acts as a preservative, so no refrigeration is needed (but you can refrigerate it if you want). The extract will last a long time, (over a year at least) but over time the flavor may start to degrade especially if exposed to light or heat.

Use the extract to flavor things like muffins and cakes, frostings, whipped cream and even drinks. A teaspoon should be plenty for most recipes, but experiment and see what works.

A little extract goes a long way; this jar used 8 lemons worth of peel and will last us a very long time.

Other Projects

This same concept can be used to make other citrus extracts like lime, orange, and grapefruit. Just swap out the citrus for a different flavor.

Experiment, and let us know what creative ways you come up with to use your extracts!