Another great way to get into the holiday spirit is through crafts. One craft that is super easy and great to do with friends and family is cinnamon-applesauce ornaments. The recipe is incredibly simple, as it requires only cinnamon and applesauce. The recipe does require a lot of cinnamon, so buy it in bulk. I recommend Smart & Final, Costco, or some sort of ethnic food store (Indian, Latin American, etc).
Here’s everything you’ll need to get situated:
- Applesauce
- Cinnamon
- Rolling pin
- Cookie cutters
- Drinking Straws
- Decorations of your choice
To begin you will make the dough, which is equal parts of cinnamon and applesauce. The amount of dough you make obviously depends on how many ornaments you intend on making. A cup of each makes about a dozen ornaments. Roll it out on a cinnamon dusted surface to prevent sticking to about ⅜ inch; too thin and they’ll be brittle.
After you roll it out, use the cookie cutters of your choice to cut out the ornaments. Once you have the the ornaments cut out, use a drinking straw to make a hole to tie string or ribbon through for hanging.
Keep in mind that the size of the cookie cutter will determine how many ornaments the dough yields. If you plan on making these as gifts, consider using cookie cutters that aren’t necessarily holiday oriented. For example, one of the ornaments below is a TIE fighter.
The ornaments can be left out to air dry for two to three days, or you can expedite the process by placing them in an oven. I did 200º for about an hour and a half, mostly because I don’t know the burning temperature of cinnamon and wasn’t interested in finding out. On a side note, if you’re throwing a holiday party or something, placing these in the oven during that event warms your home with a delightful scent. On a similar note, the ornaments seem to have an eternal scent, because I have some of these that are easily 10 years old and they still smell like new.
Lastly, you can decorate them. You can use whatever you feel like; put a bird on it, bedazzle it. It doesn’t matter.
Images by Alex Cortinas
