At this time of year, all the holiday baking can sometimes sneak up on me and run me clean out of spices like cinnamon, cloves, cardamom and allspice. Several years ago I learned a slick trick that has helped me out of countless binds…grinding my OWN spices.
During the cold-weather months, I usually keep a supply of whole cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, and whole allspice to add to a crockpot of cider. If I need to, I can convert those whole spices into the ground spices my recipes call for with a few touches of the coffee grinder button.
Important disclaimer: I use an old coffee grinder, not the grinder we use for coffee every morning. It wouldn’t hurt to use the regular grinder if I liked flavored coffees, but I don’t. I don’t want my coffee tasting like cinnamon or cloves. You don’t even need to use an old grinder if you don’t have one about. A new basic coffee grinder, which is all you need for grinding spices, is only about $7.
I fill the grinder with the whole spices and grind away until the spices are as finely ground as I want. This will take a little longer than grinding coffee. Usually I try to grind only as much of a spice as I need.
I generally break cinnamon sticks into smaller pieces before grinding them. If I’m grinding whole cardamom, I make sure that I crack the shells open and grind the little seeds inside. If you can’t seem to grind a particular spice finely enough, you can shake the ground spice through a tea strainer or a fine mesh sifter. This will sort out the larger, unground pieces and leave you with a fine powder.
In between grinding different spices I clean out the coffee grinder by grinding up about a 1/4 c. of plain white granulated sugar. The sugar absorbs the flavors and aromas of the spice ground immediately prior. This sugar is perfectly okay (and even desirable) to use in other baking that requires the particular spicy flavor. It won’t be granulated anymore though–the grinder will get the sugar very fine.
The best place I’ve found to buy spices is Penzey’s (and those of you who use Penzey’s spices know what I’m talking about.) If I am stuck for time, I can often find inexpensive and reasonably good whole spices at my local Mexican market.
Barb
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I’ve never about this sugar trick for cleaning out a grinder before. I’ve had issues in the past of flavor cross-contamination, so I’ll definitely need to try this next time I grind spices.