How to Make Ground Cinnamon From Cinnamon Sticks

In this Instructable, I will show you how to make ground cinnamon from cinnamon sticks. Freshly ground cinnamon is so good and better than preground cinnamon in my opinion. There are several methods to work to grind cinnamon sticks into powder. I showcase a few of those ways in this tutorial. If I can do it, you can do it! Let's get started!

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Follow the easy steps below or watch the video tutorial or do both!

Ingredients:

• Cinnamon sticks - I get mine at www.olivenation.com. Use the code MATT20 at checkout and get 20% off every order.

Tools for each method:

• Microplane
• Ziploc bag and meat tenderizer
• High-Speed Blender
• Mortar and Pestle
• Spice/Coffee Grinder
• Sifter

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There are several manual and mechanical ways that you can use to grind up cinnamon sticks to get your ground cinnamon powder for your recipes.

Microplane Zester

The first way, and my favorite way, if I just want to top a dessert or something with fresh cinnamon is by using a Microplane zester. It is a super handy tool that I use for citrus zest but also works great for grinding cinnamon sticks and nutmeg.

Just hold the zester over a bowl or over your dish, and run the cinnamon stick over it. It will shave very fine shavings of cinnamon. They aren't quite as fine as cinnamon powder, but still are awesome, and make for a perfect topping.

If you need more to add to a recipe, you can just spend a few minutes running the stick over the zester which will give you easily enough for 1/4 to 1/2 tsp.

The other popular manual methods are as follows:

Ziploc Bag and Meat Tenderizer

Just throw the sticks in a Ziploc bag, seal it up, then take a meat tenderizer and pound those cinnamon sticks into powder. This is a fun way to release some aggression, haha. Plus, for some reason, I always feel cool wielding the meat tenderizer (mini Thor's hammer).

Mortar and Pestle

The other popular and very traditional way for grinding cinnamon sticks into cinnamon powder is to use a mortar and pestle. This is an age-old technique, favored by many, for grinding fresh spices into powder. It works well with cinnamon sticks as well.

There are a handful of mechanical methods as well, for making your own homemade cinnamon powder.

High-Speed Blender

The first is to use a high-speed blender. A Vitamix or Blendtec or something similar will work great for this.

Place the cinnamon sticks in the blender and blend on the highest setting for no more than 30 seconds at a time. If it runs too long it may cook the cinnamon.

Remove the lid and look at the progress. Chances are after the first 30 seconds, you will have nice fine cinnamon powder on the sides of the blender, and then see larger chunks on the bottom.

Give it another 30 seconds in the blender and then you can pour it through a sifter to get all the cinnamon powder. You will be left with cinnamon "pebbles" in the strainer. Throw those back in the blender and blend again.

Results will vary depending on your blender.

Use the cinnamon powder however you like.

Spice Grinder/Coffee Grinder

Spice grinders are specifically made for grinding spices, imagine that! So if you have a two-in-one coffee grinder/spice grinder, you can definitely use that to grind up your cinnamon sticks.

Food processor

I don't recommend using a food processor. Yours may work, mine doesn't work well at all. The above two methods seem to work much much better.

There you go! Once you start using fresh home ground cinnamon you may not want to go back to the store-bought cinnamon powder. Enjoy!

Again make sure to check out www.olivenation.com, that is where I get my high-quality cinnamon among other products. Use code MATT20 at checkout for 20% off!

**Print the recipe here if you like.

Now see those steps in action with this video tutorial. :)