I seriously cannot remember where I heard this but it works. A good pinch of cardamom in a recipe that has cinnamon, especially a really cinnamon forward recipe like many holiday baked goods, really pops. Makes the cinnamon flavor more bold and fresh tasting without being overpowering. It’s like a magic trick.
Bake on, comrades.
Also, I guess share some baking or cooking tricks in here.
Gotta love those warming spices
Hell yeah solid tip
Reading this post a couple hours after making pumpkin muffins
Sprinkle some cardamon on them?
And fresh grated nutmeg
And the tiniest amount of clove and finely grated ginger
Now y’all are describing pie spice (otherwise known as “pumpkin spice”) allspice is also sometimes used in this mix.
Yeah, the cardamom trick doesn’t fundamentally alter the flavor like these other spices do. It kind of just enhances the cinnamon if you aren’t too heavy with it.
Cardamom and vanilla (real vanilla) enhance both sweet and savoury foods very well. They work well even without cinnamon.
vanilla is msg for desserts
If you haven’t tried it in savoury entrees, I highly recommend it.
Oh, plenty. I make a fair amount of curries.
Not a baker but should I try this when pickling onions? The recipe I use calls for cinnamon sticks.
You know, I would try it. You won’t ruin them, that’s for sure.
It’s expensive, but fresh ground green cardamom is so good. A little goes a long way, though.
Edit: you have to grind it yourself in one of those cheapo coffee grinders or a mortar and pestle.
I’ve got some pre-ground I use and while not as powerful it works great for this. If you freshly grind then I would be careful with the amounts. You want the cardamom to enhance the cinnamon but not become it’s own flavor.
Though with leftover ground cardamom you can add some to coffee. Turkish coffee often has cardamom in it.
Yeah, just a touch of the fresh stuff is plenty.
Though with leftover ground cardamom you can add some to coffee. Turkish coffee often has cardamom in it.
I should try this since I have some mid ass grocery store coffee right now and a few bits of green cardamom sitting around.
I just have a bunch of pods, can I just like… Grate them?
Steep them in your fats
OK, they’ve been resting on my belly for a couple hours now. What next?
I’ve always been a pod-opener-seed-grinder when using cardamom in baking, are you doing cardamom infused fats in your recipes instead? Seems like a good idea and way less effort.
If you’re making a stew or something then yeah throw those pods right in. For baked goods, smash the pods open and gather up the little black seeds, discard everything else and grind those seeds fresh just before adding to your recipe.
Probably? I have a little container of finely ground stuff I use for this. If you can get it ground finely then go for it.
Polish-style gingerbread mix has a heavy dose of cardamom, and it slaps
sounds dope af
I took this tip and added a bit of cardamon to a gingerbread dough that is very heavy on cinnamon and other spices, but typically has no cardamon. They were so good, really made the spices pop.
Thank you, great tip. It’s like when I learnt to put just a bit of cinnamon to tomato based sauces like ragu or into chocolate bakes, game changing stuff.
hell yeah, comrade. baking has so many little tips like these and im glad to have shared.
