Pumpkin Pie Spice Recipe

Pumpkin Pie Spice is a wonderful blend of warm spices that will enhance your baked goods. There's no need to buy Pumpkin Pie Spice or mix these up for each recipe you make. I make a big batch of this which takes 2 minutes tops and use it in place of plain cinnamon in baking in cakes (and all small variations thereof eg muffins, cupcakes), stirred through oatmeal or have a classic pumpkin spice latte with this handy mix!

I love having this Pumpkin Pie Spice mix already blended because it really comes in handy and the added spices make your baked goods even better than adding just cinnamon. I actually had much more use for this than I ever anticipated and I went through my tiny jar of it so quickly that I made up a bigger pot of it. Not only is it aromatic and makes everything taste better but spices are good for you too.

Ways to use This Pumpkin Spice Mix

Pumpkin Pie (haha of course)
Pumpkin cakes or any cakes where you would use cinnamon
Pumpkin spice lattes
Pancakes or waffles
Biscuits/Cookies
Muffins
Milky teas
Milkshakes
Sprinkled on top of oatmeal/cold cereal
Sprinkle on top of cereal (especially plain cereal!)

This Pumpkin Pie Spice also makes for a great gift for a friend. Find a cute jar and some tags and you'll have a wonderful little home made gift in less than 5 minutes. To buy a 50g/1.7oz jar of this is around $15 but it is so easy to make. I totally understand paying for things that are hard to make or do, but when all you're doing is mixing up spices then it makes sense to make this yourself.

The spices I use for this mix are: cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, cloves and white pepper. This is my favourite blend of spices that suits me. But hey if you like more of one spice, you can always add more! Cinnamon is known as an anti-inflammatory spice that helps manage blood sugar while nutmeg has pain relieving properties and helps with indigestion.

Speaking of health, I take a lot of vitamins as I think they really help but it has been hard to convince Mr NQN to take them. Every time I gave him some vitamins it was always like trying to convince a kid to eat their vegetables - there is a lot of carry on around it. But more recently he has started to incorporate fish oil capsules into his diet because he doesn't eat enough fish.

However he takes vitamins in the strangest way. Last week he put his vitamins on a piece of buttered fruit bread and ate it that way. It disappeared quickly and I started to wonder if it was me that was taking vitamins oddly. I haven't tried his method because I think I might need to chew a bit more and I don't want to bite into a vitamin. "You are either crazy or a genius," I told him.

So tell me Dear Reader, do you take your vitamins like this? And do you like pumpkin pie spice?