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Cinnamon and Spice

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 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Snacks

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

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

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

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.