Spice up your life: delicious flavours to create this Christmas

Thanks to The Science Of Spice by Dr Stuart Farrimond, you can create your own mulled wine and Finnish gingerbread concoctions at home

This book is a tasty read for adventurous cooks who love using spices. Is the inquisitive chef in your life ready to learn about blending spices and how to make their own garam masala or za’atar, Jamaican jerk rub, five-spice or chimichurri?

Using a periodic table of spices devised by the author, it explains the science behind why certain spices work together as well as giving essential information on how to choose, store and cook with each spice.

For a taster of what's inside, find out how to add Finnish spice to gingerbread this Christmas with this unique blend…

How to create: Finnish gingerbread spice

A fragrant, warming spice mix and the perfect base for the classic Finnish gingerbread biscuits known as piparkakut.

• 1 tbsp bitter orange powder
• 2 tsp ground cloves
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground cardamom

Mix the ingredients together — it’s enough to flavour the dough for 30 biscuits.

How to create: mulling spice

Warm red wine or cider is infused with this collection of whole sweet spices and traditionally drunk at winter celebrations, from Bonfire Night to orchard wassails on Twelfth Night

• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 6 cloves
• 6 allspice berries
• ½ nutmeg
• 2 bay leaves

Add the spices to a pan of red wine or cider and heat to simmering point, or tie them up first in a piece of muslin for easy retrieval. Add sugar or honey, orange and/or lemon slices, and rum or sloe gin to taste. Enough for two bottles of red wine or 1.75 litres (3 pints) of still cider.

The Science Of Spice, by Dr Stuart Farrimond, £20

Available now at Amazon.co.uk

*This content was commissioned and approved by DK