The ultimate Fall baking hack: 3 Cinnamon homemade spice blends

These 3 cinnamon based homemade spice blends of pumpkin pie spice, chai spice, AND apple pie spice will help you shortcut your way to any Fall baking project you can dream up.

I am very used to making my own spice blends. Most of my spices live in a draw to the side of my stove in 4 oz Ball jars. I love these jars because I can pull them out, pile them up on the counter and use and fill them up easily as needed. While I am happy as a clam making my own spice blends fresh for recipes, I realize that most people would rather grab ONE thing out of a drawer and not 5. I am that person when I’m teaching too, and have to pack up my tote for the kitchen.

You can use these spice blends in tea, sprinkle them in your coffee, or use them in Overnight Cinnamon Rolls, Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls, Caramel Apple Cookies, Pumpkin Cookies and more. Pack them up in nice jars with ribbon in a nice box, and you have an almost instant homemade gift.

What I hope you start to realize with these homemade spice blends is that the flavor of fresh spices is like no other. It’s a lightbulb moment once you taste something with freshly ground spices. It’s like a seeing trees after getting your first pair of glasses kind of wow.

Go hunting for whole spices and let’s make some awesome DIY spice blends.

this …

Fall Homemade Spice Blends

Why you should make your own homemade spice mixes

1. Flavor!!: Once upon a time when I lived closer to Denver, I went to Savory Spice Shop regularly. They taught me a lot about the freshness of spices. The first time I tasted their Saigon cinnamon, I was like, “Wait, cinnamon can taste like this?!” My students have similar experiences when I have them smell fresh spices.
2. Convenience: Taking out one jar of spice vs. 5 is easier. As long as you make up small batches, they won’t lose too much flavor from grinding to finishing up the bottom of your jar.
3. Cheaper: Making your own spice blends is often cheaper than buying gift sets or small jars of spices. Yes whole spices initially will be more expensive, but if you don’t grind them, they will last much longer without losing flavor.
4. Customizable: don’t like one of the spices? Leave it out. Like more of one than the other? Use more. When you buy jarred pumpkin pie spice, you’re pretty much stuck with what someone else’s idea of that spice is. Every BBQ restaurant I’ve ever eaten at has their own blend of spices for just this reason.
5. Easy easy gifts: We’re all looking for simple gifts, and making spice blends and packing them up is among the easiest. You can put cute stickers on your jars and make a meaningful gift for someone special in almost no time.

Equipment you need to make your own spice blends

1. Electric coffee grinder: this is the easiest, fastest way to break down spices. I keep a dedicated one for spices so that my spices don’t taste like my coffee. Just wipe it out with a paper towel after using.
2. Mortar & pestle (optional): I actually prefer the mortar & pestle for grinding spices. The mechanical action of bashing them up against the sides of the stone will release more essential oils in the spices during grinding. More essential oils = more flavor. That being said, there are some really tough seeds (fennel and caraway) that are difficult to grind by hand.
3. Microplane: if you’re making a small batch of any of these homemade spice mixes, a Microplane does the best job grating nutmeg. You’ll buy it once and use it for grating parmesan, garlic, lemon zest and a million other things.
4. Jars: I love my 4 oz Ball jars because they hold a generous amount of spices and the wide mouths are easy to fill and measure from vs. regular narrow spice jars. They’re also relatively inexpensive for gifts. You can also easily reuse old spice jars for your spice blends.

How to get started making homemade spice blends

1. Collect whole spices: Local grocery stores that sell bulk spices are awesome. In Colorado, we have Natural Grocers and Sprouts. I think I’ve bought all of my whole nutmeg this way. Amazon also surprisingly has good prices on whole spices. If I’m not sure about a spice, I’ll order 4 oz. That’s a good amount to have on hand for most things.
2. Learn about different flavors among spices: Saigon cinnamon has a nice spicy kick we’re used to as Americans for things like Cinnamon Rolls. Ceylon cinnamon on the other hand is much more delicate and floral. Taste taste taste and see what you like.
3. Test: the recipes that I have here are MY preferences for these spice blends, but make a batch and see what you think. I use less ginger and no black pepper in my chai spice blend because I think the ginger can be too aggressive and I’m not a fan of black pepper here. You might be different. Use my recipes as a base, then adjust it for what tastes good to you. I did this when I made za’atar the first time, adding twice the amount of sumac in my recipe than called for in the recipe I was using. My Pita Bread has been tasting twice as awesome since then.

Spices to keep on hand for making sweet spice blends

• Cinnamon: whole sticks of either Saigon (spicy) or Ceylon (mild, citrusy, and floral) cinnamon. I don’t love the Mexican cinnamon sticks for this application (I love it whole for tea though!); substitute good ground cinnamon if that’s the only stick cinnamon you can find.
• Nutmeg: whole nutmeg
• Mace: Mace is the outer covering on nutmeg. If you’re lucky you might be able to find blade made at a spice shop. It will add some a rather old-fashioned extra floral taste that nutmeg doesn’t have. Feel free to omit it.
• Allspice berries
• Cloves: I love the ones from Madagascar.
• Cardamom: buy it in the pods. I’ve only ever used the green pods, but I know there is black cardamom and white, which is favored in Scandinavian countries.
• Ginger: this is one that’s basically impossible to find not ground. I’ve dehydrated my own to grind, but outside of that, just buy it ground and use it up quickly.
• Vanilla sugar: this is a nice flavor booster. Try to avoid vanilla sugars made with vanillin, which is artificial vanilla and should be a war crime to use! I love the Native Vanilla vanilla bean sugar as it’s just sugar and ground vanilla beans, or you can make your own vanilla sugar.
• Star anise: you may or may not like this in your chai. Sometimes I use it, sometimes not. I always have them for making pho anyhow.
• Coriander: I put this in much of my cooking (running out of it or cumin is a true kitchen emergency in my house), and I like it in the chai spice blend too for the citrusy notes it adds.

Print