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Cinnamon Water
1/2 ounce stick cinnamon 2 cups boiling water Break cinnamon in small pieces, add water, and boil twenty minutes. Strain and serve hot or cold.
A plain spiced infusion, of the sort kept on hand for flavoring, for invalid trays, or for thinning a chafing-dish sauce. The whole recipe hinges on how much cinnamon an ounce actually is.
- An ounce of stick cinnamonThat is by weight, and it is a lot: on the order of ten 3-inch quills, though the count varies with how thick they are and whether they are cassia or Ceylon. Measuring by volume instead will give you a weaker infusion.
- Cassia or CeylonThe thick, hard, dark-red quills sold in most supermarkets are cassia, which gives the strong hot-candy flavor this recipe expects. Ceylon cinnamon, the pale flaky kind, is more delicate and floral, and an ounce of it will taste noticeably milder.
- Break it up firstSnapping the sticks into short pieces before they go in the water, as the recipe directs, exposes far more surface: whole quills stay furled, while broken shards infuse more quickly and evenly.
- Twenty minutes of boilingUncovered at a full boil, two cups will lose an appreciable amount to evaporation. Keep the lid on and hold it at a bare simmer if you want to end with something close to the volume you started with.
- StrainingCinnamon bark sheds fine gritty splinters and cassia can leave the liquid cloudy. A fine mesh sieve lined with a coffee filter or a double layer of cheesecloth gives a clear result.
- Yield and useExpect about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups. Unsweetened, it is a flavoring rather than a beverage: sweeten to taste for drinking, or use it in place of water in a chafing-dish sauce, a syrup, or a fruit compote.
- KeepingThere is no sugar or acid to preserve it. Refrigerate and use within a few days, or freeze in ice-cube trays for measured portions.
- A note on quantityCassia is high in coumarin, so a strong infusion of a full ounce is not something to drink by the pint daily. As an occasional flavoring it is unremarkable.
Cinnamon water belongs less to the dessert table than to the medicine chest: aromatic waters, cinnamon and peppermint and orange flower among them, were standard apothecary preparations through the nineteenth century, used to settle a stomach, mask the taste of a dose, or thin a gruel for someone convalescing. The chafing dish was a fashionable American fixture for late suppers in this period, prized because it let a hostess cook at the table without a kitchen fire. Lowney's Cook Book, published by the Walter M. Lowney Company of Boston to promote its chocolate and cocoa, is a general household manual of that period rather than a confectionery pamphlet, which is why a recipe this austere sits alongside the sweets.