Cooking With Mace: Blades vs. Ground, Toasting, Amounts and Storage

Mace is the lacy covering around the seed that becomes nutmeg, red when fresh and cured in the dark until it turns orange-yellow. It comes in two forms, and you use them differently: whole blades go into a liquid to infuse and come back out, much like a bay leaf, while ground mace gets measured into batters, sauces and spiced butters. Is it stronger than nutmeg? Sources disagree, but in America’s Test Kitchen’s (ATK’s) cake test, half as much mace did the job.¹

At a glance

How strong is mace?

Ratio (Disputed): This is the big question, and the sources don’t agree:

ATK’s figure is the only one we found that comes from a side-by-side kitchen test.¹ We haven’t averaged these. Taken together, they point one way: start with less mace than you’d use nutmeg, and add more after tasting.

Whole blades: infuse, then remove

The Spice House compares whole blades to a bay leaf: they suit long-cooking recipes, where the flavor seeps out gradually. It suggests them for simmering chicken stock, homemade pickles, and a piece of blade in a pot of basmati rice as it steams.² Mace also turns up in sauces, and it’s used mainly in savory dishes, pickles and ketchups.

As with a bay leaf, lift the blades out before serving; keeping them whole makes them easier to find. You’ll read that the longer mace cooks, the more flavor it gives. The Spice House’s description of gradual infusion over long cooking points the same way,² but we found no measurement of it.

Ground mace: baking, sauces and spiced butter

ATK’s two tests show where ground mace shines. Its 1/2-teaspoon-for-1-teaspoon ratio worked in a Bundt cake and held up in a plain béchamel seasoned at the last minute.¹ Sweet foods, cakes, doughnuts and fruit pies are among mace’s food uses, and it’s used especially for seasoning seafood. McCormick recommends it for recipes that want a subtle hint of sweetness, like cakes, pies and custards.³

The potted shrimps show a handy technique: warming ground mace in butter before it meets the main ingredient. That’s simply how the recipe is written,⁸ not a tested claim about pulling out more flavor.

Ratio (Attributed): The Spice House suggests a pinch to 1/4 teaspoon of ground mace in a single recipe, adjusted from there.² It’s a merchant’s advice, and a reasonable place to start.

Cuisines and pairings

Spice sellers describe a wide range of uses. These are their claims:

• Indian cooking. McCormick says mace often goes into biryanis, curries and meat dishes.³ The Spice House describes a common Indian method in which whole blades are toasted with cardamom, cloves and black pepper, then ground with fresh ginger, garlic and turmeric into a paste.²
• Northern European cooking. The Spice House names English pork pies, Swedish meatballs, mashed potatoes, and rhubarb cakes and crumbles.²
• Middle Eastern cooking. McCormick names savory lamb and beef stews.³
• Fruit and spice partners. McCormick pairs mace with apples, pears and berries, and with cinnamon, cloves and allspice.³

Toasting and grinding

You’ll often see a tip to toast mace lightly before using it, because heat brings out its oils and makes leathery blades brittle enough to grind. The Spice House’s Indian method does toast the blades with other whole spices before grinding,² but we found no source that explains what toasting does to mace or tests whether it helps. Some cooks do it; it isn’t a rule.

On grinding, ATK’s general advice is to buy spices whole when you can and grind them just before using.⁴ The Spice House says freshly ground mace tastes fresher and more intense.² The usual explanation, that grinding exposes more surface for aroma to escape, sounds plausible, but we found no source that says it for mace.

Storing mace

The University of California Cooperative Extension’s advice for all spices applies here: a tightly covered container, a dark place, and away from the stove, dishwasher, microwave, sink and the top of the fridge. It also says not to shake spice straight from the jar over a steaming pot, which lets steam into the container.⁵

FAO adds a point specific to mace: ground mace keeps better than ground nutmeg, because it has almost no fixed oil.⁹¹⁰ You’ll see a tip to keep whole mace in the fridge or freezer. We found no source recommending that for mace, and the extension release recommends refrigeration only for paprika, chili powder and red pepper.⁵ To tell whether a spice has faded, ATK says to crush a little and replace it if the smell and color are weak.⁴ More on how to store nutmeg, which shares mace’s tree and most of its storage questions.

Safety

Mace contains the same aromatic ethers as nutmeg, and a higher share of them in its oil.¹⁰ The National Capital Poison Center advises keeping nutmeg and its relative, mace, out of children’s reach.⁶ Cooking amounts like those above aren’t the concern; we found no poison-center dose figure for mace itself. See too much nutmeg for the nutmeg figures.

Not yet measured

• Whether mace is stronger or weaker than nutmeg in a dish, beyond ATK’s single kitchen test.
• What toasting does to mace’s flavor.
• How much flavor whole blades give up over a long simmer.
• A shelf-life figure for whole mace blades.

Related

• Mace, mace vs. nutmeg and mace vs. allspice
• Mace substitutes and nutmeg substitutes
• Cooking with nutmeg and garam masala