Using Spices like Pumpkin Pie Spice

Spices come from vegetable plants and are used in cooking to add a pungent and bitter taste, like mustard, or an aromatic and sweet taste, like vanilla beans. Spices, including herbs and seasonings, enhance the taste of our beverages, breads, fresh and cooked fruits and vegetables, fish, and meat dishes. Most kitchens have a collection of favorites.

Spices can be purchased separately, like fennel, or as a blend of several ingredients. Knowing the individual spices in a blend gives the chef an advantage when creating new flavors for food.

One favorite blend is pumpkin pie spice. The ingredients on the tin include cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and allspice. This sweet combination is a favorite with pumpkin, apple, squash, and many bakery delights.

A recipe for fruit salad combines pumpkin pie spice and sugar for an updated flavor.

Pumpkin is a thoroughly American food and is a member of the squash family. Squash pie sounds more like a side dish than a dessert, so try serving it during the meal. Substitute the same amount of cooked winter squash (Acorn, Butternut, Hubbard) in a pumpkin pie recipe for a great tasting change in the standard menu.

The New York Times published a recipe for Chocolate-Pumpkin Layer Cake that used pumpkin pie spice.

Allspice tastes like a combination of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Try creating your own version of pumpkin pie spice using those three ingredients, or consider adding mace. Substitute the pie spice in recipes calling for cinnamon. Be sure to leave out or reduce the amount of spices in the recipe that are included in the pie spice. This spice combination would be great in tea breads and cookies, too.

The writer makes a low calorie muffin using spice cake mix, one beaten egg, 15 ounces of canned pumpkin, and 1 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice. Mix everything together very well. It is thick and difficult to stir. Mentally divide the bowl in thirds and try stirring one third of the volume at a time. Spoon the mixture into lined muffin tins and bake according to the directions on the cake mix. Leave off the frosting to keep the calorie count down.

According to HealthDiaries.com 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon per day can lower LDL cholesterol, the bad cholesterol. There is also some evidence that smelling cinnamon boosts cognitive function and memory. It certainly tastes good. The Epicenter website reports that nutmeg and mace come from the same tree. The seed kernel becomes nutmeg and outside covering of the kernel becomes mace. Cloves are immature seeds from the tree Eugenia Aromatica. Botanical.com says that varieties are named according to where they are grown with the finest cloves come from Molucca (formerly called the Spice Islands) and Pemba (part of Zanzibar).

Sources
FRUIT SALAD WITH PUMPKIN PIE SPICE, Cooks.com
Chocolate-Pumpkin Layer Cake, The New York Times
10 Health Benefits of Cinnamon, HealthDiaries.com
Encyclopedia of Spices, The Epicenter