Pumpkin Pie Spice Blend -- #recipe by Leslie Budewitz

LESLIE BUDEWITZ:  'Tis the season.

No, not that season. 

The season for the debate about pumpkin spice and what it belongs in, from lattes to martinis to (I am not making this up) Spam. The canned pork product, not the cybernuisance. 

Me, I love pumpkin.* And I love the pumpkin pie spices. But while some unexpected flavor combos work beautifully, others don't. In other words. leave the pumpkin out of my coffee. But don’t let that stop you from taking a double spoonful and enjoying every sip!

The spices, now that's another story. My Spice Shop mysteries include spice facts and history, and often, a custom spice blend for that book. Funny, though, that while Pepper, the Mistress of Spice, mentions the shop's pumpkin pie spice blend and sells pounds and pounds of it, the recipe actually appears in Butter Off Dead, the third Food Lovers’ Village mystery. I created the blend after a friend gave me a can of spiced coffee from Trader Joe’s.

Here’s what Fresca, the protagonist’s mother, says about it:

“When my daughter Erin lived in Seattle, she sent me a can of coffee from one of those specialty shops you find in big cities—Trader Jim’s or Fancy Joe’s or something like that. Flavored coffee, if you can imagine. An abomination. Or so I thought, until I tried it—because I had to try it, if only to tell her how dreadful it was and how could people who called themselves food lovers do such terrible things to perfectly lovely coffee.

But I liked it. And so, since we don’t have such shops around here, I had to make my own blend. No pumpkin—just the spice.”

While I created the blend for coffee, it also works beautifully anywhere you want those warm, comforting flavors of fall—in scones, pound cake, Snickerdoodles, even ice cream, and yes, pie. 

*As proof of my love of pumpkin, here's a handful of links to recipes I've shared here featuring pumpkin -- and a bit of spice. Most are written using the individual spices, but you can sub in an equal amount of this blend, if you like it as much as I do! Pumpkin Spice Drop Scones, perfect for the day after Thanksgiving, when everyone wants a bit of pumpkin but no one wants to go crazy in the kitchen. Ginger Pumpkin Mousse, a lovely, light dessert for fall. And Pumpkin Spice Cookies, perfect for Halloween or any autumn day!

What about you, Kitchen Crew? Pumpkin spice chewing gum? PS vodka? PS Oreos? Or leave it for the pie -- and your morning coffee? 

My newest book, All God's Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection, is out now -- more details below. I am pretty sure Mary Fields would have loved a good strong cup of black coffee -- in fact, her young friend Amelia scores a pot of cowboy coffee during their travels and the two women warm themselves in the barn, under the watchful eyes of Mary's team, Peter and Paul, her dog, Jess, and a host of barn owls! 

PS: I finally figured out how to embed a PDF of the recipe for easy printing. Scroll down to the 💕 for the link. 

Fresca’s Pumpkin Spice Coffee Blend 

from Butter Off Dead by Leslie Budewitz

2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons ground nutmeg

2 teaspoons ground ginger

1-1/2 teaspoons ground allspice or cloves, or a blend

dash of ground cardamom

1 teaspoon dried orange or lemon peel

Mix together in a small bowl and store in a jar or tin with a tight lid. For a pot of drip coffee, add ½ to 1 full teaspoon of the spice blend to the ground coffee. For a single cup of espresso, drip coffee, or French press coffee, use 1/4 teaspoon to start, until you know how much tastes just right to you. 

Turbinado sugar is a good sweetener with this blend; add it to your cup or the blend. Feel free to experiment with the amounts and other spices, such as a vanilla bean. Trust your own taste buds, and have fun! 

💕 Click here for a free printable PDF! 

ALL GOD'S SPARROWS AND OTHER STORIES: A STAGECOACH MARY FIELDS COLLECTION, now available in in paperback and ebook 

Take a step back in time with All God's Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection of historical short mysteries, featuring the Agatha-Award winning "All God's Sparrows" and other stories imagining the life of real-life historical figure Mary Fields, born into slavery in 1832, during the last thirty years of her life, in Montana. Out September 17, 2024 from Beyond the Page Publishing.  

“Finely researched and richly detailed, All God’s Sparrows and Other Stories is a wonderful collection. I loved learning about this fascinating woman . . . and what a character she is! Kudos to Leslie Budewitz for bringing her to life so vividly.” —Kathleen Grissom, New York Times bestselling author of Crow Mary

Available at Amazon * Barnes & Noble * Books-A-Million * Bookshop.org * and your local booksellers!

TO ERR IS CUMIN:A Spice Shop Mystery (Seventh St. Books, out now in paper, ebook, and audio)

From the cover: One person’s treasure is another’s trash. . .

Pepper Reece, owner of the Spice Shop in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, wants nothing more than to live a quiet life for a change, running her shop and working with customers eager to spice up their cooking. But when she finds an envelope stuffed with cash in a ratty old wingback left on the curb, she sets out to track down the owner.

Pepper soon concludes that the chair and its stash may belong to young Talia Cook, new in town and nowhere to be seen. Boz Bosworth, an unemployed chef Pepper’s tangled with in the past, shows up looking for the young woman, but Pepper refuses to help him search. When Boz is found floating in the Ship Canal, only a few blocks from Talia’s apartment, free furniture no longer seems like such a bargain.

On the hunt for Talia, Pepper discovers a web of connections threatening to ensnare her best customer. The more she probes, the harder it gets to tell who’s part of an unsavory scheme of corruption—and who might be the next victim.

Between her quest for an elusive herb, helping her parents remodel their new house, and setting up the Spice Shop’s first cooking class, Pepper’s got a full plate. Dogged by a sense of obligation to find the rightful owner of the hidden treasure, she keeps on showing up and asking questions.

One mistake, and she could find herself cashing out. . .

Available at Amazon  * Barnes & Noble  * Books-A-Million * Bookshop.org * And your local booksellers!

Leslie Budewitz is the author of the Spice Shop Mysteries set in Seattle's Pike Place Market, and the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries, set in NW Montana. As Alicia Beckman, she writes moody, standalone suspense, most recently Blind Faith. She is the winner of Agatha Awards in three categories: Best Nonfiction (2011), Best First Novel (2013), and Best Short Story (2018). Her latest books are To Err is Cumin, the 8th Spice Shop Mystery and All God's Sparrows and Other Stories: A Stagecoach Mary Fields Collection, in September 2024. 

A past president of Sisters in Crime and former national board member of Mystery Writers of America, Leslie lives in northwest Montana with her husband, a musician and doctor of natural medicine, and their cat, an avid bird-watcher.

Swing by Leslie's website and join the mailing list for her seasonal newsletter. And join her on Facebook where she shares book news and giveaways from her writer friends, and talks about food, mysteries, and the things that inspire her.