Pumpkin Spice

The best autumn or fall spice mixture that is perfect for pies, puddings and pastries. Once you make your own pumpkin spice at home you won’t buy it from the store, it takes less than a minute to mix together too!

The making of most fall or autumn based desserts and drinks revolve around Pumpkin Spice. Yes, if you are making pumpkin based sweets like pumpkin pie, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin crumble cake etc. you would need your pumpkin spice. But Pumpkin spice is also used in many non pumpkin based desserts adding a deep earthy flavor.

I must be honest before I go on, I type this in scorching heat with the A.C. on. The perks of living in Dubai is you will experience Fall, just that it will be much later than you anticipate. So, in light of this I have started baking and cooking my way into all seasonally autumn based recipes in the hopes of the weather cooling down sooner. Hence pumpkin spice was a good place to start.

Don’t get me wrong, Pumpkin spice works with cold and hot drinks as well – not forgetting to mention cocktails also. Once we step foot into autumn most stores start stocking pumpkin spice mixtures in bottles and packets. Now, you could totally buy the bottle and use it in your cooking/baking adventures; however, my homemade version is so much easier and tastier with no additives and pure spice powder.

A classic pumpkin spice mixture includes cinnamon powder, ginger powder, nutmeg powder and all spice powder or clove powder. This is not set in stone and everyone has their own ratio and variation, making for a unique blend across all brands. The mixture in this recipe is going to yield almost 100gm of spice mix. Which is a lot unless you bake as much as I do – then you can double up the recipe if needed.

This mixture can be transferred to a sealed glass bottle and stored for as long as you like. Just keep in mind, with all spices – it looses its potency with time so use it accordingly. Ensure no moisture enters the bottle and you are good to go. Sprinkle this over salads, marinate your chicken thighs with them, its delicious over cottage cheese or grilled halloumi as well. So don’t limit your usage of this spice mix to sweets – it is yummy across savory recipes too.

This blend is my personal favorite ratio and choice of spices. I might be biased I believe it is THE BEST blend of pumpkin spice – as it goes with any and every recipe. I love grating the nutmeg fresh instead of using the powder as it feel it is more potent this way. I love all spice – it reminds me of Christmas and the addition here just hints at the fact that we are getting closer to the season. However, you could use clove powder instead of the all spice if you can’t find it or don’t have any.

I must make it clear though, you need good quality spice powders or make the powders at home if you have a high speed grinder. I buy my spice powders from the spice soup or a speciality Indian store where the spices are from India. The better quality of your spice powder, the better quality of your pumpkin spice mix.

Alright ninjas, lets get stirring!