How to use cinnamon sticks: tips, recipes

Cinnamon is considered to be one of the oldest spices known to man. Ancestors used it for making drinks, broths and many famous dishes, and we continue to add to our culinary beginnings. Nobody will be surprised by delicious pastries, caressing the sense of smell with the delicate aroma of cinnamon, excellent coffee, warming mulled wine. Despite the abundance of famous dishes, most chefs are used to seeing spice in the ground form, and not everyone knows how to use cinnamon sticks in cooking.

Homeland of an unusual spice

If you look at historical sources, you can find out that southeast Asia is considered the birthplace of cinnamon , but this does not guarantee that any spice collected in this region will correspond to a high quality index. The best product is spice, brought from Sri Lanka. The second country-producer is India. It is important to pay attention to the place where spices are gathered, because the goods from Indonesia, Burma, Vietnam and China not only do not compete with spices grown by leading producers, but also harm health. In these countries, actively growing a cinnamon substitute - cassia, if you look at the appearance, it can not be distinguished from the original spice, and the difference in taste will be found only by a person well versed in this matter. This cinnamon will never affect the body negatively, but in the case of cassia it is possible - the composition of the spice includes coumarin, which reduces the coagulability of the blood.

What is it used for?

Before you take up cooking, you need to think carefully about how to use cinnamon sticks in creating a culinary masterpiece. To bake flour products easier and faster to buy a ground version of spicy spice, almost every modern store has on its shelves this product. A powder product can also be added to coffee. If the purpose of cooking is a cocktail or tea, where it is important to convey not only taste, but also a pleasant appearance, it is better to buy cinnamon in sticks. It does not leave a cloudy residue. Tea with cinnamon sticks is not only original, but also infinitely delicious.

Recipes of some dishes suggest the presence of a flavor, left by the presence of spices during the cooking process. In the end, the spice should not be in the dish, there are experienced culinary experts and set an example of how to use cinnamon sticks to get out of a delicate situation. They are fried in vegetable oil, and then discarded, thereby preserving the taste of spice without finding it in the components of the dish. The powder, therefore, can not be pulled out any more.

How many times can I use cinnamon sticks?

Many housewives are wondering whether it is possible to use cinnamon sticks several times, or to discard them correctly after the first application? Everything depends on the personal preferences of the hostess. If you cook compote, jam or add cinnamon to mulled wine, then after cooking, you can safely get it and use it several times. However, do not forget that with each new time cinnamon will give the dish less flavor, and the taste will become less saturated. The opinion of the housewives came down to the fact that the optimal number of using spice sticks is three times.

How to grind cinnamon?

Life presents a lot of surprises: when you come to the store for a powder of cinnamon, you can not find it, but buy spices in the form of sticks. Inexperienced cooks may wonder about how to use cinnamon sticks in cooking baking? The answer is absolutely obvious - to grind, but here a person warns a number of technical subtleties.

To grate such cinnamon on a grater is extremely problematic, to try to do it in a coffee grinder or using a blender is not the best idea, instead of a fine powder you will get large and uneven chunks. The correct way is to dry the wand in a dry frying pan, which removes excess moisture from it, making it fragile, and the pleasant aroma for which people love spice will intensify several times.

The second step will be the placement of the dried stick in a dense package and grinding it with a rolling pin, only after that the obtained pieces can be ground in a coffee grinder or blender. You do not need to crush all the cinnamon at once, whole sticks keep the flavor full for a year, and the powder is only half that time.

Cinnamon oil

The number of essential oils used by man for cosmetic or medicinal purposes, today attains a huge value. Cinnamon oil is not popular. Not that the positive qualities of this tool are exaggerated, but because most people follow the fashion, and only gets advertised trends. History confirms the facts: in ancient times cinnamon was in high demand, and the value of spice successfully competed with gold products. Advocates of Chinese medicine consider cinnamon as one of the strongest medical components, but despite this, few people are purposely searching for this essential oil.

Ceylon cinnamon. How to distinguish from a fake?

The best spice is extracted from the bark of a tree that grows in Sri Lanka or in Western India. At the moment, when many know the stories about how stores deceive customers, giving out cassia, which has a number of negative properties, for real spice, Ceylon cinnamon is in great demand among lovers of fragrant spices. Check the purchase in the store in several ways. To do this, you need to carefully study the cinnamon sticks: real spice has a pleasant light brown color, fake is famous for brownish-brown tint. Cassia in the process of delivery from the collection point and the packaging to the store is deformed, it is itself very fragile, its surface is always, well, or almost always, will be decorated with a cobweb of cracks. The third way, which makes it possible to make sure of the correctness of the purchase: drop on the crushed stick with iodine - cassia will turn blue.

Properties of cinnamon

Like any other product, cinnamon has a list of positive and negative properties. Spiciness in itself is not capable of harming a person's health, but everything can change if he starts to abuse spice: do not eat it whole spoons, especially several times in one day. Cinnamon promotes weight loss, which causes some people to assume that increasing the dose will help to achieve a better result, but this is not the spice with which this method will go "with a bang." In a moderate amount of seasoning contributes to the overall improvement of the body, but it's worth crossing the line, and the effect may seem inversely proportional to what you want. A small amount of cinnamon will positively affect the work of the brain, and over time also on the visual system, however, the organism will respond to an overdose with a decline in strength, the emotional state will become depressed, and severe pain in the head may appear.

Where to buy cinnamon sticks?

This question is asked by many culinary specialists. Especially those who know how to use cinnamon sticks in cooking, because the flavor of the seasoning sold in this form is stronger and more pleasant than that of the powder, which forces people to make a choice in its favor. Not all stores can be found this product, but to the services of users of the World Wide Web online shops.