I made up a batch of pumpkin spice mix to have handy when making gingerbread, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin cake, spiced scones, and anything else Ican think of. I love spiced baked goods and thought this would make it easier—and I can't believe how awesome it is. I also like to these spices mix to pancakes, waffles and all sorts of baked food stuffs and was always making a mess getting out 5 spices each time. It's so simple and so easy, one of thoes why didn't I do this years ago things. And yes, it will go in pumpkin pie, too. The recipe changes each time but it's roughly this (there are ton online as well):
- 2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
- 2 tablespoons ground ginger
- 1 tablespoon ground allspice
- 2 teaspoon ground nutmeg (freshly grated, use more if you buy it ground)
- 1/2 teaspoon ground clove
I use about a 1-3 teaspoons of mix spice depending. Like for pancakes calling for 1 cup of flour I use 1 teaspoon of mix, but for a for a heavily spiced gingerbread, I use 3-4 teaspoons of mix.
Muffins have been pretty popular around here. This is a variation on this recipe from King Arthur Flour without the chocolate chips. I also use only half the amount of butter and add 1/4 cup applesauce. I love baking with white whole wheat flour. I used 2 teaspoons of the spice mix above and add berries to half of them, because only half of our house like berries in muffins. I just stuff frozen berries into 6 of them when they are already scooped into the cups. And muffin batter is an unruly thing, and cookie dough scooper make this awesome fun, as suggested by a clever commenter years ago. I feel like a muffin-making-robot machine.
