Cake-

German gingerbread spice
(lebkuchengewürz)

I like to tinker a spice mix together to make my gingerbready
fragrant baking something uber. (It’s kinda the baking world’s
equivalent of making one’s own curry spice mix.) Of course
you can absolutely bake with basic spices, already ground.

Understood and no judgement.


So, this is my spice entourage. Ginger and cinnamon are the
main players. The pepper amount will leave a warm glow in
your mouth, so reduce it for a milder presence. I like minimal
cloves due to a really bad clove cigarette incident in my late
teens (I spewed). My metric of success with spice mixes is that
one should sneeze at least once when baking with it, usually
while sifting. While purchasing the collection needed for this
mix, remember that leftover individual spices can be used in
other baking or cooking: garam masala, fruit braising or spice
sugars. This mix makes a thoughtful festive gift for baking pals.


Weigh the ground ginger into a small bowl. If you bought any
other  ground spices, weigh them here too. Finely grate the whole
nutmeg in.

Put the remaining whole spices in a spice grinder and whiz until a
fine powder. Mix with the ground spice and sieve into a small bowl,
discarding (or re-grinding) any large particles. Decant into a tub or jar.

Keeps Up to 3 months, ambient,
airtight, and away from light.

Makes 40 g (1½ oz). Takes 5 minutes, or longer if the
spices come in annoying packaging.

50 g (1¾ oz) ground ginger
1 whole nutmeg (6 g/⅛ oz)
15 g oz) cinnamon sticks
5 g (⅛ oz) whole allspice berries
5 g (⅛ oz) white peppercorns
(or halve for less peppery
flavour)
3 g ₁₀ oz/1 teaspoon) whole
cloves
2 g (116 oz/1 teaspoon)
coriander seeds
Adaptrix
Relaxed spice
For a fast spice hit without the fuss
of grinding from scratch, combine
50 g (1¾ oz) ground ginger with
15 g oz) ground cinnamon,
10 g oz) mixed ground spice
and ten good grinds of black pepper.