Tis the season! Its baking time & truth be told I kind of suck at it, but I press on. Spices can be so ridiculously expensive. Yesterday I was going to buy Pumpkin Pie Spice. Now it comes in a teeny tiny jar & its $5.00 for 1.12 ounces. Are they kidding? I ran into a friend in the spice aisle & expressed my outrage and she said "No, that's a really good deal. If you had to buy all of them separately, it would be a lot more."
Well, actually, I have all of the spices already except ground nutmeg, I use the whole nuts and freshly grate it when needed. Now that's obviously not practical for large quantities. So I grabbed the store brand of ground nutmeg for $3.51 (2.12 oz.) to make my own Pumpkin Pie Spice. $5-as my dad would say, they can keep it!
Before we get mixing, let's talk about other ways to save on spices. Obviously, you can buy bulk, but they don't last forever. Of course I do buy a giant container of granulated garlic from Costco, but clearly I use it every day.
I also buy some of my spices at World Market-they sell little packets to refill your containers. I usually save my containers, but I also bought a few from there to fill also. This packet is tarragon & the thyme container is empty waiting for its refill. The refills are much cheaper than buying the jar. That little clear jar is where the pumpkin pie spice is going.
Also, in the grocery store, go over the Mexican foods section, they usually have their own brand of spices for a ton cheaper! Like this giant jar of cumin was like $2.00-I use a lot of cumin. If you bought this in the McCormick brand, you'd go broke. They also sell packets for refills too which I use to refill my big cumin jar. They seem to not sell the big one anymore, sadly.
Back to our Pumpkin Pie Spice mix. I checked online for some different mixes. Some had cloves, some didn't. Some had allspice, some didn't. So not only do I save money, I can make it anyway I want it! I decided including all of them would be best.
Pumpkin Pie Spice
4 T. ground cinnamon
4 t. ground nutmeg
4 t. ground ginger
3 t. ground allspice
couple of shakes of ground cloves
It didn't fit into the little jar, so I ripped the label off my empty cinnamon container & put it in there. I don't need it to be pretty. I hope its good-seems a little heavy on the cinnamon. We shall see.
I also came upon a recipe for Apple Pie Spice(which I had no idea they sold).
1/4 cup ground cinnamon
1 tbsp ground allspice
2 tsp ground nutmeg
2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cardamom (optional)
Happy Baking!
