All about cinnamon, how to use the spice in cooking and baking, and some recipe ideas
The spice, derived from the bark of a plant, is used in Chinese, Indian and Middle Eastern cooking, and by bakers. See our easy recipe ideas
Cinnamon, is delicious. It comes from the bark of the Cinnamomum zeylanicum plant and is often called Ceylon or Sri Lankan cinnamon. However, there are several other plants – from China, Indonesia and Vietnam – whose bark is also called cinnamon, even though it is, in fact, cassia.
True cinnamon is considered far superior to cassia and has a finer, thinner, more delicate texture – if it’s in stick form, as opposed to the ground spice – and a sweeter, warmer, less bitter taste. Cassia is darker in colour and the layers of bark are much thicker.
True cinnamon is difficult to find and most of the stuff sold in supermarkets, whether it’s the ground spice or cinnamon sticks, is actually cassia. The latter has a much higher amount of coumarin, a compound that can adversely affect the liver and kidneys if taken in large quantities – if you have a predisposition to problems with those organs, you should probably avoid the spice entirely.
However, it is used mostly in baked products such as pain d’epices, gingerbread and spice cookies.