A big part of Christmas for me, other than all the gift buying, decorating and general mayhem, is the smell of Christmas. This may sound weird, but stay with me here, to me Christmas has a distinctive smell of pine needles from the Christmas tree and lots and lots of beautiful spices such as chai and cinnamon.
Just Ingredients shared this wonderful fun infographic with me which demonstrates 10 different ways that you can use spices that are associated with Christmas:
I can’t wait to get started on my Christmas baking this year. The cinnamon spiced cookies sound delicious and remind me of my own Apple Cinnamon Raisin Cookie recipe:
Cinnamon is one of my favourite spices and I use it a lot this time of year. It’s great in both sweet and savoury dishes, but I tend to use it more in my baking or sprinkled on top of my porridge for an instant autumnal hit. Here are some more recipes that use cinnamon:
Apple, Date and Cinnamon Pancakes
Cinnamon Raisin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Banana Bread Chickpea Flour Muffins
The star anise in the gravy is a great idea, which I will have to borrow for my own Christmas dinner. I’m rubbish at making a really good gravy, but I’m determined to get it right this year. Adding rosemary to the roast potatoes is also a lovely twist to make them a bit more exciting. I’m not the biggest fan of roast potatoes and hopefully a sprinkle of fresh rosemary will help in that department.
Are you tempted by any of these ideas on how to spice up your Christmas? Do you use a lot of spices in your cooking and baking?
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I love using cloves, nutmeg, and star anise this time of year. Throw it all into a pot with simmering orange juice and an orange and you’ll have the best-smelling house on the block 🙂
Yum, that sounds delicious. I love this time of year!
I love spices – I always add cinnamon, nut meg and cloves – plus most spices have loads of medicinal properties to them as well – bonus!
I always forget about the medicinal properties that some spices have. So great that they have a dual purpose in our lives.
Cinnamon has to be my favourite Christmas spice. I am putting it in everything at the moment.
Same here, I can’t seem to get enough!
The best part of winter HAS to be the spices, in food and in candles!
I love a lovely scented candle that has spices in it at this time of year.
I love cinnamon on everything year round!
Ha! Glad that I’m not on my own with that one! 🙂
Oh what a fantastic infographic – I particularly love cinnamon too with nutmeg following in second place. Can’t really beat a chai tea too at this time of year or cinnamon and hot chocolate *yum* x
Love your idea of putting cinnamon in hot chocolate, yum!