Would you rather pay $25+ or $3.50?
Quite the loaded question, no doubt.
However, there is a point. Many great bakers out there flavour their creations with liqueurs, be it your Amaretto Brownies, Rum Cake or even something crazy like Sambuca Muffins! Of course, in order to do this often the only choice to get an Amaretto flavour is to go and actually purchase some Amaretto.
There is, however, an alternative. Making liqueurs at home is easy thanks to some great flavour essences in the Liquor Quik and Prestige brands. As a cheap alternative, they work quite nicely in baking too! Much like vanilla extract you can get at the grocery store, you only need a small fraction of the essences to favour your latest baking experiment.
Take for example a recipe like this. It asks for 4 tablespoons (1 tbsp = 15 ml) of amaretto liqueur. Instead, you can substitute about 1 ml of essence for every 2 tbsp to achieve the same flavour! This means your $3.50 essence bottle can make this recipy 10 times over!
That’s just to the tip of the iceberg of course, with a ton of websites offering recipies like this to try, you’ll find an essence flavour for nearly any liqueur you can think of. For the full list of over 110 available liqueur and liquor essences, have a look here.