Cinnamon Ornaments
Submitted by hankm
Cinnamon applesauce ornaments: two-ingredient dough of ground cinnamon and drained applesauce, rolled, cut with cookie cutters, and dried into fragrant holiday keepsakes that scent the whole room.
YIELD
12 servingsPREP
10 minCOOK
20 minREADY
30 minA two-ingredient kid-friendly craft that fills the house with holiday smell all December. Not food, don’t eat them, but a beautiful tradition. The dough is just a whole container of ground cinnamon bound together with drained applesauce, nothing else.
Draining the applesauce matters. Too much moisture and the ornaments warp, crack, or take forever to dry. Line a strainer with a coffee filter and let gravity pull out the liquid for 10 to 15 minutes until the pulp looks thick and paste-like.
Add applesauce to the cinnamon a tablespoon at a time, stopping as soon as the dough holds together. It should feel like stiff clay, not cookie dough. Roll between waxed paper for easy cleanup, poke ribbon holes with a drinking straw before drying, and pick your dry method: low oven for a few hours, or air-dry for several days with daily flipping.
Pro Tips
- Use the cheapest ground cinnamon you can find, the big jug variety is perfect for this.
- Keep the oven truly low, above 200°F (95°C) and the ornaments start to scorch and curl.
- Flip air-dried ornaments daily, they dry unevenly otherwise and can stay soft in the middle.
- Sand rough edges with fine sandpaper once fully dry for a smoother finish.
Variations
- Stir in a tablespoon of ground cloves or allspice for an even more complex holiday scent.
- Press small rubber stamps into the dough before drying for decorative texture.
- Tie with twine and a sprig of dried rosemary for a rustic farmhouse look.
Ingredients
Directions
Drain the moisture from the applesauce for 10 or 15 minutes (or longer if necessary) by putting it in a colander or strainer which you’ve lined with a coffee filter (or something similar).
Pour the whole container of cinammon into a bowl and add just a little applesauce at a time; stir; keep adding but check carefully each time; until you have a VERY STIFF dough.
Roll out the dough between two sheets of waxed paper until it’s around a quarter inch thick, then cut it with cookie cutters.
Make holes in the dough cutouts with drinking straws.
Put the cookies in a very low oven (only about 175 to 200 degrees F) for several hours; watch carefully so they don’t burn (if they start to, lower oven).
Or you can air-dry them for several days, turning them over carefully each day.
When COMPLETELY DRY, put ribbons thru the holes and hang on the tree.
Comments
