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For the loyal readers who actually read the narratives on here: This is only my second post this month because my fridge started dying! I swear 2021 has got to be the year of broken appliances for us. We ordered a new fridge over a week ago and it’s taking forever to get here. Yesterday, we were feeling so gross about eating so much takeout and delivery instead of normally cooking healthier foods that we jumped the gun and ordered a smaller fridge that came today.

So soon we will have two fridges. Ha!

I’m back with a recipe for DIY pumpkin spice mix with Saigon cinnamon. Being that I was born and mostly raised in the US, I was exposed to pumpkin pie pretty early on. Despite having a bakery back in the Philippines, my family wasn’t really familiar with American baking. Our desserts came from the grocery store as we did the best we could to get by. But at every family Thanksgiving, we’d have our store-bought pumpkin pie until one of my younger cousins started baking it for the annual event.

As I got older, I gradually became exposed to different types of pumpkin spice desserts and my fondness for the autumnal spice mix grew as it became a nostalgic flavor that reminded me of warm memories. Then I remember that pumpkin spice coffee started to be a thing in college. I actually didn’t play that much into it but I remember tasting a pumpkin spice latte and not thinking it was too bad. Then again, I wasn’t into third wave coffee back then so my standards for coffee were obviously much lower.

If it isn’t already obvious, I tend to stray from the blander options. If you haven’t noticed, I am a big proponent of actually seasoning food with enough salt and I will put sweet and spicy Chinese chili oil or some other type of spicy condiment on just about everything. It’s just a personal preference.

Because of my preference for stronger flavor, I obviously wanted my pumpkin spice mix to be more pronounced. So this DIY pumpkin spice mix has a stronger cinnamon flavor due to the Saigon cinnamon. In general, this is the type of cinnamon that I prefer to both cook and bake with.

It is what works for me and I haven’t had any complaints yet.

This DIY pumpkin pie spice mix with Saigon cinnamon also includes ground cloves, ground nutmeg, ground cardamom, ground ginger and allspice. Cardamom is another spice that is not uncommonly used in most pumpkin spice mixes but still not as popular as the more basic spice mixes you get at the store. And you’ll also notice that I love my pumpkin spice to be rather gingery as well. That love for ginger straight up comes from eating amazing gingery foods in Philippine cuisine since I was a small child.

To make this DIY pumpkin pie spice mix with Saigon cinnamon we just combine 2 tablespoons of Saigon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon of ground ginger, 1 teaspoon of cardamom, and ½ teaspoon of nutmeg and ¼ teaspoon each of cloves and allspice.