Review: McCormick Cinnamon Ornaments

CINNAMON ORNAMENTS - * (1 Star)

Through the great powers that are Pinterest, I recently came across a recipe on the McCormick website for Cinnamon ornaments.  Since I had a rather large surplus of cinnamon I figured I'd give it a try.

Epic. Fail. Batman.

I followed the directions and combined 3/4 cup of applesauce with 1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons of cinnamon.  I mixed it up with my hands until it was well combined.  The directions said I would need to bake the ornaments for 2 1/2 hours or let them dry overnight.  Well apparently the air in my kitchen is super dry because the dough was drying out before I could even roll it.  I considered adding applesauce to the party, but decided against it since that sort of thing never works out for me.  I pressed on, hoping the directions were right and crumbly dough was the norm.

Turns out it's not the norm.  My ornaments barely stayed together.  I could only roll a small section of "dough" into a flat surface before the edges started crumbling and breaking the whole thing apart.  Once about 1/2 the ornaments were done, I got fed up and threw the rest of the dough in the trash.  Using a drinking straw I carefully CAREFULLY made holes in the ornaments for a ribbon or hook.  I treated those things like I was doing surgery on them and they still broke.  Fragile doesn't even begin to describe these things.

Finally, I put the ornaments into my food dehydrator and turned it on.  It has been about 20 minutes and they seem pretty dry.  Hmmm 20 minutes versus 2 1/2 hours?  Something went horribly wrong.  I now have brittle, fragile, vaguely cinnamony-smelling "ornaments" to decorate my trash bin with.  Hooray.