Cinnamon and Spice

PinSave

I love cinnamon and like to use it in my cooking and baking whenever possible. Now that fall is approaching, the warming and homey qualities that cinnamon imparts into anything made with it is especially nice.

Here are 15 of my favorite cinnamon recipes where there’s no mistaking it’s robust flavor:

Breads and Pastries with Cinnamon

Cinnamon Bun Pie – Big crumbly pieces of cinnamon-sugar streusel topping add to the flavor of the cinnamon rolls and they use shortcut so hey’re ready in no time

Cinnamon Bun Pie

Cinnamon Sugar Crust Cream Cheese and Jelly Danish Squares – The crust is hardened and crisp layer of cinnamon, sugar, and butter and the middle is filled with squishy cream cheese and jelly. They taste like an Entenmann’s brand danish and are easy

Cinnamon Sugar Crust Cream Cheese and Jelly Danish Squares stacked

Strawberry Jelly Rolls – You’ll never believe what these rolls start out as and what they become in 15 minutes flat

Strawberry Jelly Rolls

Pumpkin Banana Bread with Browned Butter Cream Cheese Frosting – The flavors of fall are in full force and between the pumpkin, banana, and molasses, the bread is so soft and moist

Pumpkin Banana Bread with Browned Butter Cream Cheese Frosting

Baked Cinnamon Bun Donuts with Vanilla Cream Cheese Glaze – If a Cinnabon cinnamon roll met a donut, this is what it would taste like, except it’s baked rather than fried and you can make it at home. They can be made as muffins if you don’t have a donut pan

Baked Cinnamon Bun Donuts with Vanilla Cream Cheese Glaze

Coconut Spice Cheesecake Bars – A layer of spice cake topped with a layer of cheesecake and only takes 5 minutes to put together before it’s baked

Coconut Spice Cheesecake Bars

Rice Pudding with Raisins – This creamy and sweet rice pudding can be made with anything from cream to sweetened condensed milk to coconut milk

Rice Pudding with Raisins in Ramekins

Vegetables with Cinnamon

Sweet Potato Graham Cracker “French Toast” Sticks – Don’t judge a book by its cover because you’ll miss out on how to make sweet potatoes taste like French toast sticks, complete with baked-in crunchy streusel bits

Sweet Potato Graham Cracker “French Toast” Sticks in jars

Caramelized Cinnamon Sugar Roasted Chickpea “Peanuts” (vegan, GF) – This is how to make ‘peanuts’ from chickpeas, and how to make beans taste like candy. I eat half the tray standing in front of the oven while burning my mouth because they’re that good

Caramelized Cinnamon Sugar Roasted Chickpea “Peanuts”
Caramelized Cinnamon Sugar Roasted Chickpea “Peanuts”

Coconut Oil Fried Cinnamon Sugar & Ginger Plantains (vegan, GF)- Plantians are bigger than bananas and usually sold near the bananas. Slice them and fry them up in a little coconut oil or your favorite oil, season with cinnamon and sugar, and you’ll wonder why you’ve never tried plantains before

Coconut Oil Fried Cinnamon Sugar & Ginger Plantains in bowl

Roasted Peanut Butter Coconut Ginger Carrots (vegan, GF) – A marinade of peanut butter, coconut oil, ginger, and cinnamon is used to coat baby carrots and it turns crunchy while baking

Roasted Peanut Butter Coconut Ginger Carrots
Roasted Peanut Butter Coconut Ginger Carrots
 

Snacks

Coconut Cinnamon Sugar Roasted Almonds (vegan, GF) – Can’t go wrong with homemade roasted nuts engulfed in a cinnamon-sugar coating

Coconut Cinnamon Sugar Roasted Almonds

Cookie Butter Spread Ginger Molasses Cookies (no-bake, vegan, with GF option) – A cross between a spice cookie, a ginger cookie, and a molasses cookie, all rolled into one little no-bake cookie ball

Cookie Butter Spread Ginger Molasses Cookies

Cinnamon Sugar Chocolate Pretzels (no-bake, vegan, GF) – Highly addictive, especially if you love a good salty ‘n sweet combo and take about 5 minutes to make, both a blessing and a curse

Cinnamon Sugar Chocolate Pretzels

Cinnamon Raisin Bread Smoothie (vegan, GF) – Like drinking a piece of cinnamon raisin bread toast

Cinnamon Raisin Bread Smoothies

Did you know that:

Cinnamon has many health benefits from reducing cholesterol and blood sugar levels to boosting memory to boosting immune system function

There are different varieties of cinnamon from Ceylon to Cassia to Vietnamese

Most cinnamon sold in the U.S. is cassia, which isn’t actually true cinnamon

You can buy organic premium cinnamon in bulk for a fraction of the cost of what you’d spend on individual jars of it in the grocery store – Use code AVE630 to save an additional $5 on your order (One pound for $10 bucks versus a little 2 ounce jar in the grocery store for 5.99 – no brainer for me the way I go through it)

Do you like cinnamon?

I love it and if I read a recipe which calls for 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, I use about 1 1/2 teaspoons. If the recipe says 1 teaspoon, that means almost 1 tablespoon for me.

Don’t worry, when I write recipes for my blog, I list the cinnamon in noticeable yet reasonable quantities because I realize that not everyone may love it quite as much as I do. However, it’s almost a guarantee that I’ve used more for what I made than what I wrote because I’m a cinnamon fiend. Really, any warming spice – pumpkin pie spice, ginger, nutmeg, cardamom, cloves, allspice – I am very heavy-handed with all of them.

The same is true with vanilla extract. Boy, do I ever go through some cinnamon and vanilla.

Thanks for the Cooking With Trader Joe’s Cookbook Giveaway entries and next post…Pumpkin!

Leave a Comment

Please note: I have only made the recipe as written, and cannot give advice or predict what will happen if you change something. If you have a question regarding changing, altering, or making substitutions to the recipe, please check out the FAQ page for more info.

The maximum upload file size: 5 MB. You can upload: image, video. Links to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other services inserted in the comment text will be automatically embedded. Drop file here

Comments

  1. Cinnamon is one of my favorite spices to bake with… everything about it feels like *home. Your cinnamon recipe list looks amazing, Averie. Your talent in the kitchen always amazes me!

  2. I love cinnamon too! It brings such fabulous flavor. I’m very intrigued by those chickpeas. I always use more cinnamon than a recipe calls for. Typically when I get a teaspoon or whatever out of the jar of cinnamon, it is overflowing and I happily put it all in the batter :)

  3. Your rice pudding looks amazing. I have such a hard time cooking rice – it’s just one of those things! I usually always under-cook it.

    1. And the great thing about rice pudding is that overcooking it is okay – almost welcome – so it gets all creamy and squishy and so this is sorta foolproof that way!

  4. I love cinnamon too.
    I use 1 ts every morning in my espresso.
    It’s good for your blood.
    I remember those french toast fries–oh boy!!

  5. The more cinnamon, the BETTER for me, too! I can’t. get. enough. It’s one of my most-used spices and I plow through bottles of the stuff like no other. My fave pairing is of course, cinnamon sugar and cinnamon rolls and the like, but my unexpected fave is pairing chocolate with cinnamon. So spicy and so good!

  6. I believe you posted this recipe round up just for me, no? I have loved seeing each and every one of these recipes. I made those chick peas earlier this year (not on the blog) and LOVED them. I made 4 cans of them and brought them on a roadtrip. Addicting. I need to make them again! I’ve made the cinnamon roll donuts.. .incredible (it goes without saying!). They are SO buttery and soft. LOVE the looks of the cinnamon pretzels and roasted almonds! And those shortcut jelly rolls and cinnamon bun pie… you are the queen of saving time!

    I love cinnamon and pretty much always double the amount called for in a recipe. Triple it at times! No oatmeal cookies is complete without it and no pumpkin ANYTHING should be missing it, that’s for sure!

    1. 4 cans?! Fiber much? :) Glad they were a hit! My stomach would hate my but my tastebuds would love me. Lol

      And the cinn roll donuts, can’t believe you made those, too. I do remember that, though. My recipe and making them feels like a lifetime ago that I think back to it! You would love love love the cinn pretzels. They are a total Sally food and are not kidding a 5 min one big bowl project!

  7. I love cinnamon and gravitate to it more in the fall and winter but definitely use it year around. I also like it in savory dishes (garam masala always comes to mind). Great cinnamon recipe re-cap–I’m craving those carrots again!!

    1. I reposted those carrots because of YOU! Had you not mentioned to me a couple times recently that you made them, I would have forgotten about them, forever! So thank you!

  8. Those coconut spice cheesecake bars look right up my alley – I love when something cuts into a perfect square like that. I do agree that cinnamon makes it feel like fall, and I am SO ready.

    1. And with blogging and photos, you always pray that when you cut into something you’re going to get a nice, clean, cut. But you never know til you slice and sometimes it’s like…gah! not happening! lol

  9. Huge fan of cinnamon. It’s such an awesome spice isn’t it? And it really does go well in some savory dishes too.

  10. I’m like you….it’s safe to say I usually triple the amount of cinnamon called for in a recipe. It’s probably my favorite spice!

    1. I at least double, and usually triple….it’s just one of those spices I don’t measure and don’t have the sprinkle top on my jars, I have the wide open top, so I dump in til it looks about right :)