Reposting for those of you wanting to get a head start on holiday preparation! These would be easy to modify for fall too; just use a pumpkin or leaf cookie cutter.

When I was a kid, a friend of mine gave me a cinnamon applesauce heart, and I remember keeping it as one of my special treasures for quite some time. I think I kept it in one of my dresser drawers, and I remember that it smelled good for ages.

I’d kind of forgotten about that until recently when I saw a couple of cinnamon applesauce ornament recipes circulating around the web.

So, I thought it would be fun to make a batch of them with my kids.

Fortunately, they’re really simple and they require only a few inexpensive ingredients.

What ingredients do you need for cinnamon ornaments?

• applesauce
• cinnamon
• glue (which is optional)

I used cheap unsweetened commercial applesauce because heaven knows I’m not going to waste my precious homemade applesauce on inedible ornaments.

And you can get cinnamon for $1 or less…it’s $0.99 at Aldi, and I think you can sometimes get it for $0.50 a bottle at dollar stores.

You will need 2 cups of cinnamon, so get the cheapest stuff you can find. This is not the time for gourmet cinnamon!

Do you need to use glue for applesauce cinnamon ornaments?

The glue showed up in some recipes I saw and not in others, so we made a batch with glue and a batch without, and I have to say, there was no appreciable difference.

So, I’d label that as an optional ingredient.

Do you have to bake cinnamon ornaments?

Nope. If you’ve got time aplenty, you can just let the ornaments sit on the baking sheet for a couple of days, until they’re nice and hard.

If you are in more of a rush, you can bake them for 2.5 hours.

How do you make cinnamon ornament dough?

To make the dough for these, just mix 2 cups of applesauce and two cups of cinnamon (plus a tablespoon of glue if you like.)

The dough should be fairly stiff, or it’ll be too sticky to roll out. So if it seems too wet, just mix in a bit more cinnamon.

Dust your countertop with cinnamon, and roll the dough out, just like you would if you were making real cookies.

Use your favorite cookie cutters to cut out shapes. I wouldn’t choose anything too large because the possibility of breakage is higher with a large ornament.

Incidentally, I’m so used to snitching small bits of cookie dough, I very nearly ate this dough several times because it looks like a delicious sort of ginger cookie. Fortunately, I caught myself in time.

Place the ornaments on a cookie sheet, and reroll the scraps to make more ornaments.

Use a toothpick or a straw to make a hole at the top of the ornaments. Make the hole bigger than you think it should be, since the ornaments will shrink some as they dry.

I just wiggled the toothpick around until the hole was large enough.

Now, several of the recipes I came across suggested baking these at 200 ° F for 2.5 hours, but on the day we made these, we didn’t have time for that.

So, we just left ours on the baking sheets to dry at room temperature (which does take longer, but you don’t have to actually be involved in the process!)

This took a few days, but of course, that can vary a lot depending on how dry the air in your house is.

I didn’t find it necessary to put ours on racks, and I didn’t turn them until the very end, when they were quite firm and there was just a small wet spot on the bottom.

How to fix ragged cinnamon ornament edges

If the edges of your ornaments are a little ragged (ours were!), you can use a small piece of sandpaper to clean them up, and then they’ll look all lovely and neat.

Sanded on the left, not sanded on the right:

How to make hangers for cinnamon ornaments

You can use a variety of things to make the hanger for these ornaments. I just rummaged around in my jar of spare ribbons and came up with these.

Hey, did you know that if your ribbon is polyester, you can melt the ends so that they don’t fray? I just light a match and hold the ribbon above it until the ends melt.

(Please do be careful since matches are fire and all. 😉 )

Hang your ornaments on your tree.

Or attach them to a package.

Or make a garland with them (I think stars would be perfect for that!)

No Bake Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments

Active Time: 15 minutes

Additional Time: 2 hours 30 minutes

Total Time: 2 hours 45 minutes

Difficulty: Beginner

These ornaments cost almost nothing and are super easy to make, even for beginners.

Print

Materials

• 2 cups applesauce
• 2 cups ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon glue (optional)

Tools

• Rolling Pin
• Cookie Cutters
• Baking Sheet

Instructions

1. In a medium bowl, combine applesauce and cinnamon. If dough is too wet, add more cinnamon.
2. Sprinkle countertop with cinnamon, and then roll dough out to 1/4 inch thick. Cut with cookie cutters, and place ornaments on an ungreased baking sheet. Use a toothpick to make a hole at the top of each shape for hanging purposes.
3. Reroll scraps to make more ornaments.
4. Let ornaments dry on baking sheets for several days, or until completely dry. Alternatively, bake in a 200 ° F oven for 2.5 hours.
5. If desired, lightly sand edges of ornaments to remove any raw edges.
6. Thread ribbon or string through holes in tops of ornaments for hanging purposes.

Want more projects? Here are 10 inexpensive DIY ornament ideas.