Cinnamon Dough

This is a simple crafting dough, like play dough, for kids of all ages. Dried, it works as a nice smelling potpourri kind of thing for car air fresheners, closets and drawers and that kind of thing. Super simple to make, I made this batch ahead of time so that we could take it Christmas Day for something to keep the kids busy after opening presents and all that. If nothing else, this stuff is just fun to play with!

So the ingredients couldn’t be simpler. It’s equal parts Cinnamon powder and apple sauce by volume. So basically, just get as big a thing of cinnamon as you can find, and an equal amount of Apple sauce. We got the cinnamon here from Cash and Carry, a wholesaler that caters to restaurants and such.

Mix equal parts cinnamon and apple sauce by volume, till you have as consistent and evenly moist a rough as possible. It should be more or less the consistency of play dough, and hold its shape easily. I like to let it sit over night or even for a few days, to let the cinnamon hydrate. As it takes on water, it makes a kind of jelly that when mixed with the applesauce, makes the dough a little more elastic and easier to work with. The finer the ground cinnamon is, the better a dough it will make.

Generally once your dough has rested, you can roll it out as you would for pie crust or cookies, and then shape the dough with cookie cutters, and shallow relief type work. Letters and patterns will stay the way you make them, as there is nothing in the dough to make it “rise”, so you can write in it and do some fairly nice detail work if you want, just don’t let the dough get too thick or it won’t dry out well.

These make great Christmas tree ornaments, car fresheners, closet fresheners (and it’s porous enough when the cinnamon stops smelling nice, you can add a drop of essential oil over the top to make it stinky again, though I am not sure floral fragrance over cinnamon will work too well, you will have to see what you like in hat regard.)

This is an easy kids project and a fun adult project too, just need a little playful creativity to decide what shapes and patterns to make them into!