Baking With Ceylon Cinnamon

Ceylon cinnamon works well in baking when you want a soft, sweet, slightly floral cinnamon that sits alongside butter, vanilla and fruit. It's milder than cassia, so a recipe written for "cinnamon" usually needs a quarter to half as much again. If you bake with cinnamon every week, it's also the choice with far less coumarin.

If your cinnamon rolls taste sharp and a bit bitter, cassia is the likely reason.

What does Ceylon cinnamon taste like in a cake?

Cassia gives the hot, bold flavour most packaged bakes use. Ceylon is gentler. In a cake you get warmth, a light citrus note, and a sweetness that seems to round off the sugar.

It suits:

• Butter cakes, tea cakes and sponge
• Apple, pear and banana bakes
• Custards, bread pudding and baked rice pudding
• Shortbread and butter biscuits
• Cinnamon sugar for toast and doughnuts

For very sticky cinnamon buns, where cinnamon should be the loud part, some bakers still prefer cassia or a mix of both. That's taste, not a rule.

How much should you use in place of cassia?

Start with this table, then taste the batter or the cinnamon sugar.

Powder you ground yourself that morning is stronger than an old jar, so go easy the first time. Our post on Ceylon cinnamon sticks vs powder has the grinding method.

Three ways to get more flavour out of it

Grind it fresh

Ceylon's smell is light, so stale powder hurts it more. Grind a couple of sticks the day you bake.

Infuse it in milk

For custards, kheer-style puddings, bread pudding and ice cream bases, warm the milk or cream with a broken stick for 10 to 15 minutes, then strain. You get a clean, rounded cinnamon flavour with no grit.

Stir it into melted butter

Melt the butter, stir in the ground cinnamon and leave it off the heat for a few minutes before mixing. The fat carries the smell through the whole bake.

What goes well with it

Ceylon doesn't shout, so it sits happily with other spices.

• Cardamom. A very Kerala pairing in banana bread or a plain tea cake. A few crushed seeds of Kerala cardamom go a long way.
• Clove. Classic in Christmas cake and spiced biscuits. Use it sparingly, since it takes over quickly.
• Nutmeg. Good in custards and apple bakes.
• Vanilla. The two soften each other in plain cakes and cookies.

Does coumarin matter when you bake?

If you bake now and then, not much. If you bake with cinnamon several times a week, or children eat cinnamon bakes daily, Ceylon is the easier choice. Cassia can carry far more coumarin.

The tolerable daily intake set by EFSA is 0.1 mg per kg of body weight, and the EU limits coumarin in traditional and seasonal bakery to 50 mg per kg. Our post on Ceylon cinnamon and coumarin goes through it. This is a reason to pick Ceylon if you use a lot of cinnamon, not a health claim. If anyone at home has a liver condition, ask a doctor about regular cinnamon.

Mistakes that flatten the flavour

1. Using too little. A recipe written for cassia often tastes faint if followed exactly.
2. Old powder. A jar opened two years ago barely shows in a cake.
3. Scorching. Cinnamon sugar on top can burn at high heat. Add it late in the bake or lower the oven a little.
4. Coarse bits. If you grind at home, sieve it. Woody shards feel wrong in a soft cake.

For baking we'd grind our own from whole cinnamon sticks. Ours are packed whole with nothing added, and they break easily in a home mixie.

Try it first in a plain butter cake, where there's nothing else to hide behind.

Sources

• BfR: FAQ on coumarin in cinnamon and other foods