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Cinnamon, Essence Of
Put one-eighth of an ounce of oil of cinnamon into four ounces of strong spirit. Bottle for use. Sufficient, two or three drops will flavour half a pint of sauce or liquid.
A two-ingredient flavouring essence of the sort a Victorian cook would have kept in the store cupboard beside the almond and lemon. The only thing that really matters is what kind of cinnamon oil you buy.
- Food-grade oil onlyBuy an essential oil sold explicitly for flavouring or labelled food grade. Aromatherapy and fragrance-trade cinnamon oils are not intended to be swallowed and may be diluted in carrier oils that will not dissolve in spirit.
- Cinnamon or cassiaMuch of the oil sold as "cinnamon oil" is distilled from cassia bark or from cinnamon leaf rather than from true Ceylon bark. Leaf oil leans clove-like because of its eugenol; bark oil is the sweeter, hotter, more familiar cinnamon note.
- The quantitiesOne-eighth of an ounce is about 3.5 g, roughly three-quarters of a teaspoon of oil. Four ounces of spirit is almost certainly four fluid ounces, that is half a cup, giving a solution of about three per cent.
- "Strong spirit"This most likely means high-proof rectified or neutral spirit rather than brandy or rum. Vodka at 40 per cent may leave the oil cloudy or incompletely dissolved; a 60 per cent or higher grain spirit dissolves it more completely and holds it better when cold.
- Half a pintCassell's is British, so half a pint is 10 fluid ounces, about 1 1/4 US cups. Two or three drops in that volume is the right order of magnitude; cinnamon oil is fierce and easy to overdo.
- Never taste it neatUndiluted cinnamon bark oil is a strong irritant to mouth and skin. Judge the strength only after it is dispersed in the sauce, custard or syrup.
- Bottling and yieldFour ounces will last a very long time at three drops a time. Use a small dark glass bottle with a dropper, keep it out of the light, and shake before use in case any oil has separated.
Distilled essential oils were largely a chemist's product through the nineteenth century, sold by the drachm, and a cook who mixed her own essence in spirit avoided paying confectioners' prices for ready-made flavouring. Much of what reached British kitchens as oil of cinnamon is thought to have been cassia oil rather than oil distilled from true Ceylon bark. The same recipe pattern, a measured fraction of an ounce of oil in a few ounces of spirit, recurs for lemon, almond, ratafia and clove across Victorian household manuals, which suggests a standard formula rather than anyone's invention.