Why is cinnamon so different for baking and cooking?!
Now if one is cooking with cinnamon it is a different story, just a SMALL shake will go a LONG way and make things HOT! (Still good though). Why is that?
Is it somehow subdued by the sugar in baking? Does it react with another spice I cook with? What is the difference?
Answers: If one makes cinnamon (and sugar) toast, you can pile on a LOT of cinnamon. If one is baking, there can be a good amount of cinnamon put into many things. It tastes good.
Now if one is cooking with cinnamon it is a different story, just a SMALL shake will go a LONG way and make things HOT! (Still good though). Why is that?
Is it somehow subdued by the sugar in baking? Does it react with another spice I cook with? What is the difference?
I think that if tou are sauteeing or frying cinnamon it makes it more potent.
The sugar in baking, as you suggest, likely softens the spiciness in baked items.
I think it probably has to do with the temp and time that baking takes and it may "dilute" the flavor, just as baking with alcohol takes out the alcohol content.
I kind of sat here and thought about this one for a moment. I think you're right about the sugar. I don't have any hard evidence, only subjective experience, but it does seem that when there's actual sugar in the picture, the cinnamon taste is subdued. The "thick/sticky" texture of dissolved sugar on the tongue seems to provide a barrier; maybe it's a question of the fact that sugar is an electrolyte, albeit a weak one, and it's preventing SOME of the cinnamon from making contact with our taste buds.
If you're using cinnamon from a container versus cinnamon from a shaker, be sure that the stuff in the shaker is not old; cinnamon really absorbs moisture and its flavor can degrade rapidly.
Enjoy! :-)
cinnamon sugar is most likely more sugar than cinammon itself! it's commercial stuff~ also for cinnamon to be sitting with sugar will mean the aroma WILL diffuse.
real cinammon is the bark form and should be grated prior to use.