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As someone who loves bold spice, I’ve often interpreted the amount suggested in a recipe loosely, upping it to my liking. But sometimes more still isn’t enough, so recently I picked up an electric spice grinder to unlock the flavour you can only get from the freshly crushed stuff. Although I’d assumed that only pricey grinders could get the job done right, I arrived at my local fancy homewares retailer intent on finding the best affordable electric spice grinder.

The one recommended to me was the Krups Fast Touch electric coffee and spice grinder ($30, amazon.ca), a handy little appliance that chops and grinds spices, seeds, herbs, nuts and yes, even coffee (but more on this later). And intriguingly, it can grind chunkier spices like cinnamon sticks evenly, which cheaper grinders often struggle to do.

I found that it quickly elevated the flavour of my favourite dishes, including lentil soup with plenty of cumin, which is on constant rotation in my home. Grinding fresh cumin seeds for it with the Krups was a quick process, including the cleanup afterwards, which only took a minute or so. The resulting soup had a complexity I’ve never quite achieved before, and the cumin was much more fragrant and noticeable. I also swapped out preground cinnamon for freshly milled cinnamon sticks in my favourite apple muffin recipe, a switch that made the spice a star instead of a supporting character.

There’s only one button that runs the machine, so after filling the grinder and popping on the lid, just press and hold it until your spices are ground as finely as you prefer. You’ll generally want to go all the way down to a powder for spices, and this does a great job. For any chunks that remained or got stuck around the edges, I just had to tap it around a few times and regrind to smooth it out. The shape is nice, too; while many other grinders are circular, this one is oval, so spices are easier to pour out.

The Krups does have its limits, though. You can’t use wet ingredients to make, say, pesto or chutney, which some of the pricier electric spice grinders, or even a mortar and pestle, can do. Also, while this model can technically be used for coffee beans, I found that it fares much better with spices. It sometimes produces inconsistently sized particles when you’re not grinding to a powder, which won’t make for the best brews. This isn’t an issue for spices, though; they’ll be perfectly ground and ready to bring depth to any dish.

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