So you’re about to whip up a batch of cupcakes when you realize that you’re all out of vanilla extract. We’ll let you in on a little secret: You can still bake your cake and eat it, too, without ...

Claire is Lifehacker's Senior Food Editor. She has a B.S. in chemistry, a decade of food journalism experience, and a deep love for mayonnaise and MSG. Plunking a scraped and spent vanilla bean into ...