Chinese Five-Spice

I was bored and started to watch a cooking show on Prime. The show was how to make different cupcakes. Since I am baking for my daughter’s Deli, I thought this video would be helpful. It was and I picked up some more tips about making cupcakes and more.

The baker started out by showing how to make basic vanilla cupcakes and then the vanilla icing. Since I already knew most of that, I didn’t get any new tips. Then she showed how to make chocolate cupcakes. That was where I learned something new. Her secret was to add ½ tsp of cinnamon and ½ tsp of Chinese Five-Spice. I never used this in my cupcakes. If one doesn’t have the Chinese Five-Spice blend, chili pepper can be substituted. 

I should have let go of the Chinese Spice. But no, I was intrigued and wanted to use it. God knows that I already had the chili pepper. I decided to google the spice and found out where it was sold. I didn’t want to drive to Cranberry to the Walmart. I noticed that Giant Eagle had it. It would have been so much easier to get into my car and check it out but I didn’t. I googled Giant Eagle and keyed in Chinese Five-Spice and came up empty handed.

The next step, I just went to amazon and found it. I ordered a bottle and received it two days later. But before that, I found myself in Giant Eagle looked over the spice rack and lo and behold, I found a small bottle of Chinese Five-Spice and bought it.

The next day, I received my amazon order. I opened it up and found an 18 oz. bottle of the spice. I figured that I would bring it into the catering kitchen and give it to my daughter.

My daughter looked at it and said that it was one of her least favorite spices to use.

Now…I have an oversized jar and a smaller jar of the Chinese Five-Spice blend. All I needed at the most was ½ tsp. of Chinese Five-Spice. At the rate that I will use the spice, I will be dead and the spice will be outdated and thrown away.

Maybe I should learn a lesson in patience and restraint. Yeah, that would have helped.