Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Cook's Guide entry for Cinnamon along with all the Cinnamon containing recipes presented on this site, with 1024 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Cinnamon recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Cinnamon as a major wild food ingredient.

Cinnamon (also known as Celylon Cinnamon). is the dried inner bark of Cinnamomum verum a small evergreen tree reaching about 15m tall and a member of the Lauraceae family (which also includes Bay, Avocado and Sassafrass) and a native of Sri Lanka and Southern Inia. Cinnamon is prepared by growing the tree for two years and then coppicing it. The following year year a dozen or so shoots will form from the roots. These shoots are then stripped of their bark and left to dry. Only the thin (0.5 mm) inner bark is used; the outer woody portion is removed, leaving metre long cinnamon strips which curl into rolls ("quills") on drying; each dried quill being formed from the bark of a number of shoots packed together. These quills are then cut into 5–10cm long strips for sale.



Even today the best cinnamon comes from Sri Lanka though the tree is now grown in a number of locations around the globe. Cinnamon needs to be distinguished from the related spice, Cassia which is the whole bark of Cinnamomum aromaticum. This is sometimes sold as cinnamon (most often in the US) and may be distinguished from true cinnamon as 'Indonesian cinnamon'. Cassia actually has a stronger flavour than cinnamon is harder and woodier and is thicker as well. True cinnamon will easily be reduced to a powder either in a pestle and mortar or in a coffee grinder. But cassia is much tougher and more fibrous and can actually damage a coffee grinder.



Cinnamon is generally used as a flavouring for cakes and desserts. However, cinnamon has also been found to have antioxidant behaviour and the essential oil (which provides the flavour) has antimicrobial abilities, suggesting that cinnamon may extend he shelf-life of foods. Cinnamon is also one of the classical spices of the ancient world.