New Year's Day Brunch

Everyone is getting ready for big New Year's Eve parties, but I prefer to stay low key tonight and celebrate tomorrow with a New Year's Day brunch! Brunch is my favorite meal and a great one to host. You can make it as easy or as complicated as you'd like. I prefer to try to do as much as possible ahead of time, serving coffee cakes, muffins and other baked items I can make the night before. Here are a few tips and recipe ideas for your own brunch celebration:


Tip #1: Bake items the night before. Choose items that can be made ahead so you can enjoy your guests. Muffins and Coffee Cakes are a great choice.

Tip #2: Consider Pot-luck: You can ask other guests to bring things so you aren't spending too much time in the kitchen. Again, the idea is to be able to enjoy your guests. If you want to do the baking, you can ask guests to bring an egg, meat or vegetable dish. Or just ask them to bring some fresh fruit, which is always a great part of any brunch.

Tip #3: Even if you are making everything yourself, choose dishes that can be made ahead of time and kept warm in the oven. Things like egg casseroles, french toast, or hash browns are good options. Cover with tin foil and put in the oven at 250. Or you could make MOST of the meal ahead of time and have just ONE item that needs to be made on the spot - pancakes, eggs to order, etc.

Tip #4: Have several drink options - Coffee, Tea, (and Decaf coffee or tea) as well as a variety of juices. Some brunch cocktails can be great too - Mimosas and Bloody Marys can be made by the pitcher quickly and easily just before serving the food. Sure, it's nice to make individual drinks, but we're trying to keep it EASY here! :)

Here are some Menu Ideas. Just click on the link for the recipe:

Go British with fancy teas and freshly made Scones:

 

 

Recipe for Traditional Cream Scones

How to brew proper cup of Tea

 

 

Great Coffee Cakes you can make ahead:

 

 

Almond Coffee Cake

I also make a cranberry almond coffee cake by adding

one cup chopped fresh cranberries to this recipe.

 

 

Cinnamon Coffee Cake

 

 

Lemon Coffee Cake

 

Muffins can also be made ahead and are a healthier option:

 

 

Zucchini Spice / Carrot Spice Muffins

 

Apple Breakfast Muffins

 

 

Sugar 'N' Spice Muffins

(okay, so these ones are not as healthy as the

ones above, but they are my favorite!)

 

 

Or do traditional breakfast fare with these Homemade Pancakes:

 

Homemade Pancakes

 

 

You can even "carmelize" some apples to put on top - just peel and slice 2-3 large apples, put them in a sautee pan, add 1 Tbsp butter plus 1 Tbsp brown sugar, and cinnamon (or other spices to taste) cook on medium heat until the apples have softened and the sauce is syrupy like caramel.

Christmas Ornament Cupcakes

 

These Ornament Cupcakes are festive and not very difficult to make. They do take a bit of time, but I think they are worth it. Here is what you do:

 

1) Bake your favorite cupcakes in sturdy paper or foil cups and let them cool.

 

2) Make (or buy) fondant, and color it in whichever shades you like (it is good to do different 3-4 colors. You only need a little of each color).

 

3) Roll out the fondant and cut it into circles with a large round cookie cutter.

 

4) Place the fondant circles into the holes of a mini half-ball pan and press gently, working the fondant into the domes to make it fit. (You can purchase a mini half-ball pan at most cake decorating stores or craft stores. If you do not know what a half-ball pan is, here is a link: Wilton Mini-Ball Pan) 

 

5) Let the fondant sit overnight to set.

 

6) Frost the cupcakes with any stiff buttercream. Soft or gooey frosting won't work here.

 

7) Put the fondant domes over the tops of the cupcakes, pressing down gently.

 

8) Brush the domes with lustre dust (shimmery edible dust available at Cake Decorating stores).

 

9) If desired, make a half batch of Royal Icing and pipe designs on your ornaments.

 

10) Make some hook and loop attachments out of fondant and attach them with royal icing (you can color it gray or just form them out of white fondant and then paint them with silver lustre dust afterward).

 

 

 

 

This post is featured on Wicked Good Wednesdays at 365 Days of Baking. See more here:

365 Days of Baking Wicked Good Wednesdays

Spicy Gingersnaps

If you like your gingerbread spicy and crisp, these will be your favorite. These gingersnaps have a BOLD spicy ginger flavor, which is how a gingersnap should be. If you like a softer cookie instead, try my Soft Gingerbread Cookies which are the same cookies with some minor tweaks to keep them soft instead of crisp.


1 1/2 Cups Shortening
2 Cups Sugar
1/2 Cup Molasses (dark or light - it's up to you)
2 eggs
4 Cups Flour
1 tsp salt
4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp ginger
2 tsp cinnamon

Melt shortening in a medium saucepan on low heat. Cool a little. Add Sugar, Molasses, and Eggs (it is important to let the molasses cool a little so it doesn't curdle the eggs). Beat good. Have all dry ingredients mixed together in a separate bowl, then mix into the wet ingredients and stir until well blended (you can transfer it into a kitchenaid mixer to do this part if you'd like). Chill the dough for at least 2 hours, preferably overnight.
 
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

On a generously floured board, roll the dough thin and cut into simple shapes like circles (no intricate shapes because they spread). Do not be afraid to flour the board generously, this dough can handle it since it was originally meant to be a chewy cookie. When they are rolled out, you can sprinkle them sith sanding sugar if you'd like, pressing it in gently to help it adhere. Bake at 375 degrees for 7-10 minutes until the center looks set and the edges are getting browner than the rest of the cookie. Cool completely before stacking or packaging.

Cranberry Mini-Pies

 

These cute little pies and tarts are easy to make and they are also a great use for leftover cranberry sauce (the chunky kind, not the jellied cranberry sauce). Below is my own super-easy recipe that works as both a sauce and a filling. If you want to use your own leftover cranberry sauce, you can just add some thickener. How much thickener to add? Depending on how much liquid your sauce has, a good place to start would be 1 teaspoon cornstarch for two cups of cranberry sauce. If you like your pies sweeter than you like your cranberry sauce, you can always add a little extra sugar too.

Cranberry Sauce / Pie Filling:

1 12-ounce bag raw cranberries, picked over to remove stems and bad berries
1 Tablespoon grated orange zest
2/3 Cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 Cup Pure Maple Syrup
pinch of ground clove (about 1/8 tsp)
optional: 1/4 teaspoon each freshly ground nutmeg and ground cinnamon

Simmer over low heat until the mixture makes a thick sauce and berries are mostly broken. Cool to room temperature. At this point you can use it as a delicious cranberry sauce. If you want to thicken it for pie filling, add 1 teaspoon cornstarch and stir well. The filling will thicken while baking. Use with your favorite sweet butter crust, or try this great recipe from Martha Stewart: Pate Sucree Extra. (You can use however much you need based on how much cranberry sauce you have and freeze the leftover dough).

Roll out the crust and fill mini-pie pans, tart shells, or muffin cups with the dough. Spoon in the cranberry sauce mixture and cover with a top crust or a streusel topping. (I like to sprinkle sugar on top if I am using a top crust.)

Bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes for mini-pies and tarts, or 40 minutes for a full-sized pie. The crust should be turning golden and the filling should be bubbling up a little bit.

Enjoy!

Baking with Cranberries

Living in Massachusetts, home of Ocean Spray, we are big on cranberries around here. I love to see the bogs at harvest time. And no Thanksgiving table would be complete without cranberry sauce. But cranberries can be used for so much more than sauce at Thanksgiving dinner. Cranberry breads, muffins, pies, bars and cookies are great too.

Cranberries are very acidic and too bitter to eat raw. But their tartness is wonderful when it is mellowed with sugar. For breads and muffins, I put them into the batter raw, and they soften while baking. The sweet bread surrounding the tart berries is a great flavor combination. For cookies, I like to use dried cranberries paired with white or dark chocolate chips (an oatmeal base is great for this). For pies and bars, I cook the cranberries in a saucepan with sugar, spices and a bit of pure maple syrup (see recipe below). This makes a great easy cranberry sauce, which becomes a great filling with just a little added thickener. You can also swirl this mixture into a coffee cake.

Cranberry Sauce / Pie Filling:

1 12-ounce bag raw cranberries, picked over to remove stems and bad berries
1 Tablespoon grated orange zest
2/3 Cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 Cup Pure Maple Syrup
pinch of ground clove (about 1/8 tsp)

Simmer over low heat until the mixture makes a thick sauce and berries are mostly broken. Cool to room temperature. At this point you can use it as a delicious cranberry sauce. If you want to thicken it for pie filling or cranberry bars, add 1 teaspoon cornstarch and stir well. The filling will thicken while baking. Use with your favorite sweet butter crust, or try this great recipe from Martha Stewart: Pate Sucree Extra. Bake at 400 degrees for 40 minutes for a full-sized pie or 20 minutes for mini-pies and tarts.

Book Giveaway!

I was excited to have a picture of my Mile-High Lemon Meringue Pie featured on the back cover of the new book by Mimi Shotland Fix, The Faux Pastry Chef - How I found my Baking Fix.

This great book is a story of re-invention, perseverance, and overcoming obstacles. It's also an insider's look at the commercial preparation of food. I am currently reading my own copy and learning a lot about the inside world of professional high-volume baking. Now one reader can win their own autographed copy! Just see the Rafflecopter instructions below to enter:

The giveaway ends in one week and a random winner will be chosen by Rafflecopter. Good Luck! a Rafflecopter giveaway

Soft Gingerbread Cookies with Almond Glaze

These Gingerbread Cookies won "Best Tasting Gingerbread" at the 2012 Boston Christmas Festival. They are the same recipe as my Spicy Gingersnaps, with a couple of minor adjustments to keep them soft. These cookies were the result of an experiment that went deliciously wrong. If you want to read the silly story about that, see the bottom of this post.

***These cookies spread a little, so for Gingerbread People and other intricate cut-out shapes, I still use my standard Gingerbread Cookie recipe, Best Gingerbread Cut-outs.


1 1/2 Cups Shortening
2 Cups Sugar
1/2 Cup Molasses (dark or light - it's up to you)
2 eggs
4 Cups Flour
1 tsp salt
4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp ginger
2 tsp cinnamon

Melt shortening in a medium saucepan on low heat. Cool a little. Add Sugar, Molasses, and Eggs (it is important to let the molasses cool a little so it doesn't curdle the eggs). Beat good. Have all dry ingredients mixed together in a separate bowl, then mix into the wet ingredients and stir until well blended (you can transfer it into a kitchenaid mixer to do this part if you'd like). Chill the dough for at least 2 hours, preferably overnight.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

On a floured board, roll the dough thick and cut into simple shapes like circles. Bake at 350 degrees for 6-9 minutes, until the tops look set and the edges are just starting to turn a little browner than the rest of the cookie. Cool. Ice them with simple milk glaze or Almond Glaze. Let them dry completely before storing these cookies in an airtight container. Due to the moisture in the icing, they soften up while stored.

Almond Glaze: Stir together 1 Cup Powdered Sugar + 1-2 teaspoons of milk and 1-2 drops of Almond extract (the flavor is strong, so go easy). You can adjust the icing by adding more sugar or milk until you get a thick consistency for spreading or piping.

Funny Cookie Story:

I made a Gingerbread Lighthouse to be displayed at the 2012 Boston Christmas Festival. I was so busy working on my house that I forgot we had been asked to also bring some gingerbread cookies so that the judges could award a "Best Taste" prize. Late the night before the contest, I remembered about the cookies. Tired and not wanting to whip up some new Gingerbread dough, I remembered that I had recently made some Molasses Cookie dough and stuck it in my freezer. Molasses Cookies are almost identical to Gingerbread, having all the same ingredients just in different amounts. (Whereas Molasses cookies stay chewy, Gingerbread tend to be a little firmer so they roll out better). I said to myself, "What the heck?" and gave the Molasses Cookie dough a try. I rolled it like Gingerbread and crossed my fingers. I was surprised when they spread a lot, then turned crunchy when they cooled. I was ready to call the experiment a failure, until I tasted them. They were the best Gingersnaps I had ever tasted! After they cooled, I decorated then with a simple milk glaze flavored with a touch of almond extract. I submitted them and to my shock, ended up winning the taste category, beating out two locally famous sweet shops, including one that specializes in gingerbread.

I had submitted them as gingersnaps since they were crunchy when I packaged them, but when I tried some of my leftover cookies later, I noticed they had softened up in the airtight packaging. To this day I don't know if the judges' cookies stayed crunchy or softened up too! But now I have a recipe that can yield three very different results: Chewy Molasses Cookies, Crispy Gingersnaps, or Soft Gingerbread cookies.

Gingerbread Ideas

I have a love affair with Gingerbread that lasts all year long. Of course I make it at Christmas time (Cookies, Cake, and Houses) but Gingerbread doesn't have to be limited to the holidays. Here are some ideas for using Gingerbread all year 'round:

 

Gingerbread Teddy Bear Cookies

 

 

Gingerbread Skeletons for Halloween

 

 

Gingerbread Mustaches for the kids to have fun with (and eat!)

 

 

If you are planning to keep Gingerbread in the realm of Christmas, you can still get creative and try out different shapes. Don't just think Gingerbread People:

 

Gingerbread Reindeer!

 

 

 

Big Gingerbread People with candy decorations

 

 

 

 

And, of course, Gingerbread Houses

 

Love the taste of Gingerbread but don't want all the fuss? Try my Boston's Best Gingerbread Cookie recipe - it can be made crispy like a gingersnap or soft with a delicious almond glaze. And of course there is always Old-Fashioned Gingerbread, which is more of a cake. Click the link for that recipe.

 

Enjoy!

 

 

 

How to cook Pumpkin

 

 

Pumpkin is everywhere this time of year, and it is one of my favorite flavors! Pumpkin Pie, Pumpkin Bread, Pumpkin Cake, Pumpkin Bars or Pumpkin Muffins - They all start with cooked, mashed pumpkin. You may have wondered how to cook pumpkin, or if it is even worth it when grabbing a can of cooked pumpkin at the store is so easy. Here is a guide to cooking pumpkin and using the puree for baking. Incidentally, canned pumpkin is one of the few canned things that I think is fine to use in baking. It does save steps and, in my opinion, it won't lessen the quality of your dessert. Some people say that using freshly roasted pumpkin instead of canned pumpkin increases the flavor, but I find the results marginal. However, if you DO want to know how to cook pumpkin step-by-step, read on:

The first step is to choose the right pumpkins. Can't I just use my Jack 'O' Lantern from Halloween? Well, technically you CAN cook it, but the pumpkins used for carving are generally not the type you want to cook with. Those pumpkins have a higher amount of water and a lower sugar content than "cooking pumpkins" which are called Sugar Pumpkins. Sugar pumpkins are smaller and rounder than carving pumpkins, and frequently a deeper shade of orange (See photo above). If you have trouble spotting them, ask for them at your local farm stand or pumpkin patch. Sugar pumpkins are usually NOT found in grocery stores.


After you have the right kind of pumpkin, you need to wash it and cut it open. Cutting a pumpkin can be done with a sturdy sharp knife, or you may find it useful to use the "mini saw" tool available in pumpkin carving kits. Cut the stem off and cut the pumpkin in half:

 

Scoop the seeds out with a large spoon: (You can save the seeds if you want to make roasted pumpkin seeds: Wash them, sprinkle with a little salt and roast at 400 degrees until golden brown. Cool before eating.) 

 

 

Next, use a pumpkin scraper or similar kitchen tool to scrape the inside of the pumpkin, getting rid of the stringy threads.

 

 

Put the cleaned pumpkin halves in a roasting pan or pyrex casserole dish:

 

 

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Bake the pumpkin for a minimum of one hour, or until you poke it with a fork and the interior is nice and soft. (One hour was the time I used for my small pumpkins, but you may need to adjust accordingly. Don't worry about overcooking - at this low temp the pumpkins will be fine as long as you check them every ten minutes or so around the one-hour mark.)

 

 

This is what my cooked pumpkin looked like (notice the many fork holes to check for doneness).

Cool the pumpkin until you can comfortably handle it, then scoop out the softened flesh:

 

Take the cooked pumpkin and puree it in a food processor or put it through a ricer like I did. (After using the ricer, I remembered why I used a food processor last time - the ricer works great but it is messy!) If you want it a little chunky, you could just mash it with a fork too. Either way, what you end up with should look something like this:

 

 

If it looks a little watery, you can put the mashed pumpkin in a fine-mesh strainer over a bowl and let it sit to drain for one hour up to overnight in the fridge. I never get much water out, so I just skip this step. But some people say it is useful.

 

Now you can use the pumpkin puree to make all sorts of dishes, savory and sweet!

 

Check out the recipe page to try my Pumpkin Pie, Spiced Pumpkin Squares, and Pumpkin Cake with Sage Whipped Cream.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to brew a "Proper" cup of Tea

Tea drinkers can be even more fussy than coffee drinkers. To the English and the Irish, a good cup of tea is the cure for whatever ails you. I agree - I always feel better after sitting with a cup of tea. For this post, I consulted my great-aunt Ethel Mahoney, who is a 92-year-old Irish lady, and consequently is rather opinionated on the subject of a proper cup of tea.

1) Fill your kettle with COOL water and put it on the stove to boil

2) Bring the water to a FULL BOIL (don't just shut the kettle off when you see some steam starting, let it whistle)

3) While you wait for the kettle, put the tea into the pot (See notes below for amounts to use)

4) Pour boiling water over the tea (don't add water first and then put tea in). Let it steep for 3-5 minutes.

5) Serve tea with sugar and milk on the side. Milk is preferred by avid tea drinkers, not cream or half and half. Lemon can be served instead of milk - don't use both or the milk will curdle. Remember that milk will also curdle when added to citrus teas like Lemon Tea or Orange Zest Tea.

6) Serve tea with some kind of biscuits, cookies or crackers. Most tea drinkers want a little nosh item with their cup of tea.

Loose vs. Bags? There is some disagreement among tea drinkers about loose tea vs. tea bags, but I find that even the old die-hards are open to bags nowadays. Here is a general idea of how much tea to use, though personal taste will vary:

Loose = One heaping teaspoon of leaves for the pot, plus one spoon per cup (a pot to serve two people would be three heaping teaspoons of tea leaves).

Tea Bags = Usually 3-4 bags for a medium pot is good, or one bag per cup.

If you are unsure how much tea to use, brew a test pot before serving company, and see what tastes good to you.

Gingerbread Lighthouse

 

I made this Gingerbread Lighthouse for the 2012 Boston Christmas Festival. It is a replica of Nauset Light, a famous lighthouse on Cape Cod. Everything is edible on this gingerbread house. It was displayed during the christmas festival and then auctioned off for charity. This was the first year when I actually kept track of how much time and money I spent making a Gingerbread House, and I was pretty surprised by what went into a house this size. Although it is bigger than gingerbread houses I had done in the past, at 2 square feet, it was pretty small by competition standards. None the less, it took 50 hours and $69 to make! Gingerbread houses can get very intricate in detail, and the little details are what take a lot of time. Also, when you do gingerbread replicas of actual buildings, you tend to spend more time in the design phase getting the model accurate before you even make the house. As for what I spent, here is the breakdown:

 

 

2x2 ft plywood base = $5 at Lowe's

LED Lights for inside = $4 at craft store

Candy and Gum = $22

Ingredients to make three batches of Gingerbread dough = $10

4 boxes of rice cereal for the base (rocky shoreline) = $12

Ingredients to make lots of Royal Icing and Gum Paste =  $12

Isomalt for the Lighthouse glass = $4

 

 

Here are some pictures of the details:

 

 

The Rocky shoreline is a base of Rice Krispy treats covered with gum paste.

Below are pictures of how I built it:

 

 Creating a large base of Rice Krispy treats (4 boxes of cereal!)

 

 After the base was built, I packed down the rice krispy treats nice and tight, then levelled it off so the house would have a level foundation.

 

Here is a picture of the base half covered in gum paste rocks. I colored the gum paste different shades of gray and brown and alternated the colors, pressing bits of it onto the rice krispies in the shape of rocks. Then I went back later and hand-painted some shading in places.

 

For the lighthouse, I rolled gingerbread very thick (more than 1/4" thick) and baked it on an inverted french bread loaf pan:

 

You can see that it cracked, but the cracks were merely on the surface, so the structure of the gingerbread was not compromised. I then made a tapered cardboard tube (wider at the base and narrower at the top) out of thin bendable cardboard to provide inner structural support. I "glued" the gingerbread to the cardboard tube with royal icing. Since the gingerbread itself was not tapered, there were gaps on the sides which needed to be filled in with slender triangular pieces.  I baked a small sheet of gingerbread and then cut pieces especially for this purpose. After it dried, I coated the whole lighthouse with royal icing.

Gingerbread Lighthouse is made of gingerbread covered in Royal Icing imprinted with a brick pattern.

 

Above is a picture of the gingerbread lighthouse lit up

 

Below is a picture of the Christmas Tree in the window:

 

 

This is the display at the festival. My gingerbread won "best tasting" (we had to submit GB cookies in addition to our house because one part of the competition was taste.)

 

Pumpkin Cake with Sage Whipped Cream

This Pumpkin Cake is a lot like Gingerbread in texture - dense, moist, and best served in thick squares with a dollop of fresh whipped cream on top. I love to serve this with Sage Whipped Cream, which is simply regular whipped cream with a bit of finely ground sage mixed in. The flavor of the sage is very subtle, but it gives the whipped cream a unique, interesting flavor. Sage is a versatile herb that is used in every season, but in Autumn recipes it really shines. It goes really well with pumpkin, both in sweet and in savory dishes.

This pumpkin cake would also make a great pumpkin bread if you baked it in loaf pans (you would probably get one regular and one mini loaf out of this recipe). If you are looking for a frosted pumpkin layer cake, see Pumpkin Layer Cake with Maple Frosting in the recipe section.

For the Cake:
1 2/3 Cups All-purpose Flour
1 1/2 teaspoons Cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground Nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground Cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground Ginger
1/2 teaspoon Salt
3/4 teaspoon Baking Soda
2/3 Cup Vegetable Oil
3 Eggs
1 1/4 Cups Packed Brown Sugar
1 Cup Cooked Pumpkin

Variation: If you wanted to make this into a "Pumpkin Gingerbread," you could increase the ginger to 1 whole teaspoon and add 1 Tablespoon of molasses.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease (or line with parchment) one 8x8" square baking pan.

Mix the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl and stir well.

In a separate bowl, beat the eggs, oil and sugar together. Add the pumpkin in and stir well. Add the Flour mixture to the wet mixture in three batches, stirring well after each addition. Pour into the baking pan and bake for 25-30 minutes. The cake is done when the center springs back when touched with your finger, or when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. This is a dense, moist cake and will take a while to be done in the center. Don't rush it or you will have a soggy undercooked middle. Let the cake cool until it is warm but not hot, then cut into squares and top with sage whipped cream.

For the Sage Whipped Cream:
1 Pint heavy cream, very cold
3 Tablespoons Granulated Sugar
1/2 - 1 teaspoon ground Sage

Have your bowl and a wire whisk chilled before you make the cream. I stick mine in the freezer for twenty minutes. I also put the cream in the freezer for ten minutes or so, just to make sure everything is very cold.

You can use a KitchenAid mixer to whip cream, but whipping it by hand prevents over beating. If you do use an electric mixer, just watch it carefully. Whip the cold cream until it just begins to thicken before adding your sugar and sage.

If you have a mortar and pestle or spice grinder, grind the sage with the sugar a bit so that the sage gets even finer. If not, don't worry - It will still taste good.

Add in the sugar and sage, then whip again until it thickens to your desired consistency. For this dessert, I like the whipped cream to be just thick enough to not be called "liquid" anymore. I like it to kind of slump over the sides of the cake (see picture at top). But you may prefer a whipped cream that stands up stiffly like this:

The Importance of Good Spices

 

I never thought it really mattered where you got your spices. I figured whatever was on the grocery store shelf was good enough, you know? But after I started getting my spices direct from the spice companies, I started to notice a BIG difference. The flavors and aromas from these herbs and spices were more pungent, stronger than the ones I had been buying at my local store. I was surprised by the difference. But the most surprising thing I discovered was that these better spices were often  cheaper than the ones on the grocery store shelf! For example, some of the most common herbs and spices I buy are about $1 less when I buy direct from a spice company. And since they taste fresher anyway, it is a double win.

Why is there a difference? It may be because the spice aisle makes up only a small part of your grocery store or specialty store. So spices are only a small portion of their business. Each individual jar of herbs or spices might sit on the shelf for quite a while. Certain ones just don't move fast enough to ensure that what you are getting is fresh. It's as simple as that. When you buy direct from the company, you are getting a fresh product from a source that ONLY handles herbs and spices, so the quality and freshness are guaranteed.

Some of these spice companies have retail stores you can go to, and some of them only offer online sales. If you are lucky enough to have a spice store in your area, you can save yourself the shipping costs. But even when I spend $6-8 on shipping, I generally save money when compared to the grocery store prices - the lower cost of the merchandise makes up for the shipping price.

The other big reason to buy your herbs and spices direct from a spice company is VARIETY. There is a huge variety of items that you've probably never even heard of, and a whole array of unique spice blends that are not available in grocery stores. For example, the Mystic Blue Spice Company offers an array of small batch spice blends and flavored sugars like Lavender Sugar. Penzey's Spices offers four different types of cinnamon. And they both offer great salt-free blends as well.

Order your next batch of spices direct from a spice company and I guarantee you will notice a difference!