Cinnamon Spiced Dough Ornaments

On Instagram today, I posted this picture of us making classic Christmas cinnamon ornaments. Did you make these when you were a kid? I did. I haven’t seen them around since I was a kid. We made them at my childhood home in the 80s, at church groups around the holidays, and we saw them hanging in all of our friend’s homes. This craft is perfect for kids because they can do it ALL. I’m sure you’ve seen the same holiday pins and DIYs for kids that left you thinking…a kid made that or a kid CAN actually put that together? Yeah, I’m confused too. The point of sharing crafts for kids is for the kids to actually be able to complete them with little to no help.

This is that craft, people!

So, I’ll share the recipe I use.

Cinnamon Spiced Dough Ornaments

1 1/4 cups cinnamon

1 Tablespoon ground ginger (optional)

1 Tablespoon ground nutmeg (optional)

3/4 cup applesauce

1/4 cup craft glue (I use Mod Podge)

a straw

an assortment of ribbons for hanging

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees (F). Mix all ingredients together. Roll out the dough between 2 sheets of parchment paper until it is 1/3 of an inch thick. If you make them any thinner, the ornaments will break more easily. If you make them thicker, they will take longer to cook and may not harden properly…then again I haven’t tried to make them 1/2 an inch thick so maybe it’s fine. ;) If the dough is too wet, let it sit for a few minutes and the glue will slowly harden, making the dough easier to work with. Cut your desired shapes with cookies cutters or freehand and transfer the shapes to a cookie tray lined with parchment. If the dough gets dry, just spritz it with a little water. Take a straw and make a hole a small distance from the top of the shape (close enough to tie a ribbon and far enough away that the hole won’t come apart). Cook for and hour and a half on each side, cool, then tie a ribbon through the hole. I would not recommend air drying these because part of the point is for you to benefit from the smell of cinnamon exploding throughout your house. If you don’t bake the ornaments, that spicy waft will not happen. At that point, I would question why one would make them at all. ;)

The ornaments will keep for a few years, but they will start to lose their scent a the spices get old. Also, the ornaments will eventually crumble unless you add some sort of coating. The coating will cover the smell completely, but will preserve the memory/hand-print/drawing/sculpture/design of your kiddo. So, maybe around year 3 you could add a clear coating to preserve the memory.