Gingerbread Spices
The smell of gingerbread can linger long after the treats have gone. There are five spices that are combined to give gingerbread its flavor. Seed, nut, flower, root and bark are represented in the flavor and all are readily available in most grocery stores in ground form. You may also want to mix up a batch of gingerbread spices altogether and give as a gift, along with your favorite recipe. Does this Spark an idea?
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Cinnamon
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Cinnamon comes from the bark of one of dozens of types of evergreen trees that grow in tropical settings. It was long used in Egypt, Sri Lanka and Ceylon. You can find it today in sticks from the bark, or powdered. Use the sticks for flavoring cider while you bake. Use the powdered form in the gingerbread. A very similar spice to cinnamon is cassia, and the two are used interchangeably.
Nutmeg
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Nutmeg comes from trees that yield a woody, hard-shelled nut which in turn yields two usable spices. Mace comes from the larger portion of the inner nut, but nutmeg itself comes from the small oval seed at the center. The seed is dried and ground into a fine powder. This is the form of nutmeg used for baking. If you have access to a nutmeg tree, grinding the seed yourself makes for a far better and fresher quality than you'll find commercially.
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Cloves
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Cloves come from the dried, unopened flower of the tropical Eugenia caryophyllus tree. These trees grow in the West Indies, Sri Lanka, Zanzibar, India and Madagascar. When the flowers start to open, they are pink, but they are picked before full opening takes places and turn to a rusty brown color as they harden. The hardened flowers are accumulated and ground to make clove powder. Some people take bunches of whole cloves and grind them in food processing tools or other grinders, which gives them the strongest and freshest possible aroma.
Allspice
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Allspice is a plant that smells like all the other four spices here combined. The tree grows well in Central and South America, the West Indies and Mexico. The dried berries have a similar appearance as peppercorns. The berries dry and when they are hard, they make a rattling sound which indicates the inner seeds are ready to be used. These seeds are then ground into the resulting allspice used in baking.
Ginger
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Ginger grows in many countries and has long been used in Asia, Polynesia, India and Arabic countries. The rhizome of the ginger plant is used for the spice. Some people mix up roots and rhizomes, because the rhizome is the part that is under the ground on ginger plants. You can either grind up whole chunks of fresh ginger or use the dried and ground version. If you opt for using fresh ginger, peel off the outer, papery layer first.
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