Christmas spices from A to Z: how good it smells!
Anise, also called sweet caraway, are the green, dried seeds of the anise plant. The typical, slightly licorice-like aroma is provided by the essential oil anethole. Depending on the variety, anise tastes sweet-aromatic to spicy-dry. Anise is mostly ground as a spice used for the classic anise biscuits, pepper nuts and Springerle.
Ginger: The spice is in the roots of the ginger plant, which belongs to the family of spice lilies. Ginger tastes lemony-spicy. As a baking spice, the root is dried, bleached, peeled and ground and then comes in ginger cookies, gingerbread (German gingerbread) and printen. Fresh ginger is often used in Asian cuisine. Candied ginger, sugar ginger and ginger sticks covered with chocolate are a popular sweet.
cardamom belongs to the ginger family. The immature seeds, which come from flowers on the side shoot of the plant, are used. Cardamom tastes aromatic and sweet-spicy and is indispensable with spice cookies, speculoos and punch spice. The capsules around the cardamom seeds protect their aroma. Therefore, always release the seeds from the capsules just before use. A pinch of cardamom in coffee or hot chocolate tastes good too.
coriander is closely related to caraway, fennel and dill. The seeds smell of dried lemon and musk and taste of orange peel, cinnamon and nutmeg. They are ground used in the Christmas baking, z. B. in gingerbread and printen. Coriander seeds flavor many Arabic and Indian dishes. The fresh green leaves are also called the "parsley of Asia". Especially in the Thai kitchen, they are very common.
cloves are dried flower buds of the clove tree. They taste slightly spicy and have a very intense aroma due to the high proportion (up to 25 percent) of essential oils. Please always use sparingly! Cloves spice up gingerbread and are indispensable with grog and Feuerzangenbowle.
Pimento: Its globular grains are the unripe harvested, dried berries of the clove pepper tree. Allspice tastes of cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon and pepper. The name comes from Columbus, who considered allspice pepper and therefore called it "Pimenta" (Spanish for pepper). Allspice is spiced with honey and gingerbread and stews and soups in the hearty cuisine.
star anise, also called Badian, is the star-shaped fruit of an evergreen magnolia tree. He is not related to the anise, but has a similar, slightly licorice flavor. Ground spices star anise gingerbread and pepper nuts. Mulled wine or Christmas tea, it gives a fine aroma and looks great in it.
vanilla belongs to the orchid plants. Their pods are botanically seen fruitcapsules of the vanilla plant, which contain many small black seeds and sticky oil. The pods are steamed several times after the harvest and dried, the first is the typical aromatic taste. Vanilla belongs in almost every cake or cookie recipe and in many desserts, even outside of Christmas time. When baking, only the soft mark is used, which is scratched out. Do not discard the pods, they can be whole or ground mixed with sugar mixed with vanilla sugar. Vanilla sugar with real vanilla's ready, z. B. by Dr. med. Oetker. The cheap alternative is the artificially flavored vanillin sugar.
Cinnamon: The spicy cinnamon is made from the dried bark of the cinnamon tree. Canned cinnamon is made from Ceylon cinnamon by interlacing several dried layers of bark. This cinnamon is also called Kaneel, it is slightly lighter and tastes finer. The cinnamon sticks season mulled wine or punch. Ground cinnamon is made from Cassia (China) cinnamon or Padang cinnamon and is darker, more aromatic, but also slightly bitter. Not to be missed is the ground cinnamon in cinnamon stars. Incidentally, cinnamon is the spice in diabetes: it should help to lower blood sugar levels!
