Snacks & Desserts

Hello smoky sizzle…

Granola is one of those perfect “pick me up” foods – whether as a morning breakfast or afternoon snack it gives you a nice boost of energy (and it tastes pretty good too!). You’ll find many recipes for spiced granola, but spicy granola? Well that’s another story. We like our granola with a little sizzle…in fact smoky sizzle in this recipe.

The heat comes from a mix of smoked paprika and cayenne pepper powder. You can control the smoke to heat levels by adjusting the amounts in the recipe according to what you want. Less smoke, more heat? Lower the smoked paprika, increase the cayenne. The spiciness makes this more a snacking granola than a breakfast option (but hey – we certainly don’t judge – we reach for heat at breakfast all the time).

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Chocolate (times two) meets smoky chipotle pepper…

You can’t go wrong with rich chocolatey cookies with a hint of smoky spiciness. That’s the premise behind these spicy Mexican hot chocolate cookies. Cocoa powder and chocolate chips provide a sweet foil to smoky chipotle powder and fiery cayenne pepper. It’s a mouth explosion of earthy sweet and a wisp of smoke and heat.

As an extra touch try dusting these cookies with a little touch of chipotle powder before serving. Just a light dusting provides a more immediate smoky heat experience.

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A perfect healthy on-the-go spicy snack…

Fruity sweet, crisp, and spicy – spicy apple chips are a real healthy treat, especially if you’re the “on the go” type.Put a handful into a ziploc bag and go! They are perfect for lunches and afternoon snacks.

The recipe mixes cinnamon and cayenne pepper powder. It’s a perfect pairing in our book – earthy sweet and spicy, without being over-spiced to the point where the heat is secondary. Of course, feel free to experiment with additional spices, too. A touch of nutmeg or allspice can be a great adaptation to the base recipe.

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A quick and tasty spicy snack…

Hot sauce and popcorn are a terrific snacking mix. Buttery, salty, and fiery – all are here and it only takes a couple of minutes to pull together. And we’d go to bat for Sriracha sauce being the perfect hot sauce for the job. It adds a little garlic undertone to the popcorn flavor, and just enough heat to be enjoyable for party snacking. Feel free to adjust the amount of Rooster sauce and salt used to better fit your heat tolerance and dietary needs. 

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Rich and fire-filled…

Habanero chocolate sauce is a healthy step up from our cayenne chocolate sauce recipe. Habanero pepper ranges 100,000 to 350,000  Scoville heat units while cayenne a “mere” 30,000 – 50,000. Cayenne is plenty hot for most people, so know that going in. Habanero has serious extra-hot kick.

That said – if you love extra spicy foods and rich chocolate, this is a pairing made in heaven. It’s delicious poured on ice cream, spread on chocolate cake, or drizzled on fruit (habanero chocolate strawberries are wicked good). Habanero pepper powder is not easy to source in brick and mortar stores (but we carry it for sale as a PepperScale spice), so you can use habanero hot sauce instead. It won’t have the same overall punch. Unlike pure habanero powder, habanero in hot sauce is diluted by other ingredients. It’s still hot, but nowhere near the powdered form. Choose a habanero hot sauce that’s tomato-based, not vinegar-based. El Yucateco Red Habanero hot sauce is a good choice for this recipe if you decide to go the hot sauce route.

Read moreHabanero Chocolate Sauce

Pumpkin sweet, with a hint of heat…

Now this is a pumpkin pudding with punch! This isn’t simply a spiced pumpkin pudding, this is spicy. A touch of cayenne pepper powder among that pumpkin pie spice provides the sizzle. It really adds a balance to the sweetness of the vanilla pudding and pumpkin in the recipe. If you aren’t ready to invest the time into baking a cayenne-spiced pumpkin pie, this quick-to-make dessert is a terrific alternative. Topped with granola and nuts, it even has a crust-like crunch with each spoonful. 

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