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Add the scent of cinnamon to your holiday with homemade cinnamon Christmas ornaments. These ornaments can be hung from the Christmas tree, used to decorate packages, strung together to make a beautifully scented garland, or as great holiday gifts. Since the recipe is simple these are a great Christmas craft project to do with kids!

This recipe makes 12 – 14 medium sized Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments. It takes about 15 minutes to make and knead the dough, and 2 1/2 hours to bake, for a total time of 2 hours, 45 minutes.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup cinnamon
• 1 tbsp. ground cloves
• 1 tbsp. nutmeg
• 3/4 cup applesauce

Making the Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments:

1. Preheat oven to 150°.
2. In medium bowl, combine cinnamon, cloves & nutmeg.
3. Add applesauce, stir to combine.
4. Work the dough with your hands for 3 or 4 minutes until dough is smooth and ingredients are thoroughly mixed.
5. If the dough is a little crumbly, add a tablespoon of applesause at a time to it until it is smooth and a bit sticky.
6. Roll out dough to 1/3 inch thickness. It will be sticky, so be careful with it. You can use cinnamon like flour on your pin and rolling surface to stop it from sticking.
7. Cut dough with cookie cutters. Simple shapes like hearts, bells, trees and gingermen are easier to work with than cutters with complicated shapes.
8. Using straw make small hole in top of ornament.
9. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet at 150 degrees for 2 1/2 hours
10. Remove from the cookie sheet and cool on a wire rack.
11. Loop a ribbon through the top.

Additional tips:

• You can dry ornaments without the oven. Set them on the wire rack at room temperature, and let them stand 2 days or until completely dry. Turn them a few times throughout the process so they dry even and flat.
• If you have a food dehydrator you could also dry them in that.
• You can use acrylic paints to decorate the ornaments once they are dry.