Holiday baking with spices

Blame it on the nutmeg. Of course it's a holiday staple, a sprinkling grated over eggnog, half a teaspoon for mulled cider, a quarter teaspoon in a pumpkin pie. But when a recipe calls for grating one and a half whole nutmegs, well, that's a lot of nutmeg, and the next thing you know I'm making panforte and grating away with my Microplane to see just how much (after a five-minute elbow workout, it yields a small handful). In the meantime, the piles of spices are accumulating on the kitchen counter -- cinnamon, cloves, black pepper, coriander -- and it all smells so Zanzibar-fantastic.

By Betty Hallock

December 3, 2008