Pumpkin Spice Blend

We made this pumpkin spice blend in collaboration with vegan baker and writer Alicia Kennedy. We've known Alicia for years — she wrote the first article on us back in 2017, and a few years later we were on her podcast, Meatless.

Now, she pens an outstanding and provocative weekly newsletter that tackles inequity in the food industry, interrogates tired tropes in food media and challenges our assumptions about meat consumption. Alicia is more than just a food writer; she's a culture critic who uses food as a pathway to explore consumption, capitalism and structures of power. Needles to say, we're big fans, so when Alicia said she wanted to collaborate on a baking spice blend, we jumped at the chance.

This Pumpkin Spice Blend is anything but basic, and we've taken to calling it the anti-PS blend. In this punched-up version, cloves and ginger take center stage against a backdrop of warming cinnamon and nutmeg. Coriander adds an unexpected twist with a bright, herbal note that refreshes and invigorates the blend.

Just like Alicia's writing, this collaboration was made to challenge the languishing notions of what something (in this case, a pumpkin spice blend) can be. This bright and bold blend strives to reclaim the name.

Is there pumpkin in it? No. Does it go well with pumpkin? Yes, but so much more. Use it in pancakes, shortbread cookies, rice pudding, tea, and of course any pie that involves pumpkin.

For those eagle-eyed readers, the jar features pumpkin flowers designed by Alicia's tattoo artist.

• Ingredients: Royal cinnamon, Grenada gold nutmeg, buffalo ginger, Pemba cloves, Nile coriander
  
• Tasting notes: Bold • Bright • Not Basic

COOKING

• Pumpkin Spice Pudding
• Molasses Shortbread
• Pumpkin Spice Syrup & Butter
• Pumpkin Spice Rum Toddy
• Wordloaf's Pumpakryddbullar
  
• Sweet Plantain Caramel Spice Cake

ABOUT ALICIA KENNEDY

Alicia Kennedy is a writer from New York based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Her weekly newsletter on food culture, politics and media, From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy, has been mentioned by the New York Times, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle and Eater, and recommended in New York Magazine, W, Food52, and Vogue Australia. She is currently at work on a book about eating ethically for Beacon Press.