Mulled Apple Cider

So, I know I'm a little late to the food blogging game. And I'm not usually one to follow trends or fads, but I like food and I like sharing it, so the food blog phenomenon is one trend that I can definitely get behind!

I've been in a bit of a cooking frenzy lately and had a chance to try out a bunch of new recipes. Posts will probably be fast and furious for a few days while I try to catch up with my cooking. I figured I'd start off with a fall favourite:

Mulled Apple Cider
9 cinnamon sticks (3" each)
15 cloves
1 tsp. coriander seeds
2 star anise
12 green cardamom pods
2 blades mace
3L apple cider
1 prune
peel of 2 oranges
1/4 c. jaggery

This recipe is an amalgam of several mulled apple cider recipes that I found online combined with a few of my own inspirations and additions.

Most of the spice suggestions come from a post on Serious Eats.

The orange peel and the idea to sweeten it a bit came from The Pioneer Woman's mulled cider recipe. She suggested a fairly hefty quantity of maple syrup, which I tried the first time I made it. I suspect that she is dealing with much tarter cider than I am, as I found the result (even with half the quantity of syrup she called for) too sweet for my palate. It was my husband's idea to replace the syrup with jaggery. He thought that the slight fruitiness of the jaggery would complement the cider well and, having taste tested the revised version (halving the amount of sugar again), I agree!

The mace was my own addition. I love mace and I thought that it would "play nice" with the other flavours involved, so I tossed a couple blades in the pot. It's not a strong flavour next to the cinnamon and cloves, but I think it complements well.

The prune may seem like a bit of an odd addition. I ran across a recommendation that slivovitz (plum brandy) makes an excellent addition to mulled cider as the plum pairs nicely with the apple and the alcohol adds a bit of depth to it. I didn't have any slivovitz on hand and, even if I had, TF really wasn't keen on the idea of adding anything boozy to the pot. I did have prunes though! So, the hope was that tossing a dried plum in the pot would impart some of that flavour minus the booze. I'm not sure how much it really comes through in the final product, but it's not hurting anything to have it in there, so I figured why not?

I've made this with both toasted and untoasted spices, and it has come out delicious both times. Toasting definitely adds to the richness, but untoasted spices still yield a wonderfully tasty result.

There's something incredibly comforting about a nice hot mug of mulled cider. Especially once the weather's turned cold! There's nothing quite like curling up on the couch in warm slippers and pyjamas, your hands wrapped around a steaming mug of cider, as you sip and look out the window on a cold, blustery fall day. The aroma alone is enough to make me smile and -- although I sometimes have a tendency to guzzle my drinks -- one taste of the warm, sweet spiciness of a good mug of cider is all it takes to convince me to slow down and savour. Every. Last. Drop.