Mixed Spice Sugar

This is just a quick make for the pantry shelf, a nice mixed spice sugar that you can actually use in your baking or as s topping for mince pies, or apple and pecan muffins or in rock cakes wherever you would use a touch of spice.  I think this would be lovely in home made teacakes or hot cross buns too.  If you make this now it should be scented well in advance.  The recipe comes from a magazine cutting this time by Jamie Oliver.

Ingredients:

3 cloves
2inch piece of cinnamon stick broken into rough chunks
3 tablespoons of sugar
Pinch of grated nutmeg
Strip of Orange Zest ( I used dried)
Pinch of ground ginger

Method:

1. Place the cloves, the cinnamon and a tablespoon of the sugar into a bowl of a pestle and mortar and grind it all together as finely as you can.  
2. Add the nutmeg, orange zest, ginger and the rest of the sugar and mix everything together.  Sieve the sugar to remove any large pieces of spice.
3. Use where the fancy takes you (might even be nice in some whipped cream)

Its the simple things that add the most flavour and I regularly keep cinnamon sugar, lavender sugar and vanilla sugar on the pantry shelf.  I make them myself as I usually get a lot more by making it at home rather than paying through the nose in the shops.