What spices go with pumpkin

Squash and pumpkin are sweet, dense and low in aroma, and they need a savoury counterweight rather than more sweetness. Fried sage in brown butter supplies exactly that, and the frying itself changes the herb — the mustiness cooks off and what remains is nutty, which meets the caramelised squash halfway.

How: Leaves fried in butter and poured over roasted squash; In a pumpkin ravioli filling

Add alongside: Nutmeg, Black pepper, Cinnamon (Ceylon)

Ginger's sharpness is the corrective a sweet squash needs, in soup as much as in pie. It is the component of a pumpkin spice blend doing the most work and the one most obviously missed when it is left out.

Add alongside: Cassia, Nutmeg, Allspice

The pumpkin-and-warm-spice combination is thoroughly established in North American baking and works because squash sugars and cinnamon's sweet aromatics reinforce one another. It also works in savoury contexts, which is less widely exploited.

Add alongside: Nutmeg, Green cardamom, Ginger

Pumpkin is sweet, dense and slightly flat, and the standard warm-spice treatment risks burying it. Cardamom is aromatic rather than heavy, so it lifts the squash instead of sitting on it.

Add alongside: Cassia, Ginger, Honey