Cinnamon sugar is a mixture of ground cinnamon and granulated white sugar used as a spice to flavor foods such as , Snickerdoodle cookies, tortillas, coffee cake, French toast, and . It is also used to flavor apples, cereals, and other fruits. As McCormick describes cinnamon sugar, "it’s the comforting scent of Sunday morning cinnamon toast and mid-summer’s peach cobbler...the aroma of the holidays, with cinnamon cookies and spice cake."
In 1846, Charles Elme Francatelli, a British cook of Italian descent, published a cookbook in which he described shaking "some cinnamon sugar" on the surface of "cherry bread" (a British bread), German "Kouglauff," a German tourte of apricots, and on a brown-bread soufflé. 18 years later, in 1865, J.E. Tilton's cookbook talked about how the create the spice mixture, recommended that it be on eggs, and baked with as a possible replacement of "vanilla sticks." By 1881 J.E. Thompson Gill's cookbook still recommended how the mix could be made, but recommended it be applied on pound cakes instead. 17 years later, in 1898, a cooking encyclopedia would refer to the spice mixture when talking about cinnamon sticks and other desserts. In 1907, Hotel Monthly published a cookbook that mentioned cinnamon sugar as a topping for rum baba, a type of cake. This was followed by the National Baker writing, in 1913, about the sprinkling of this mixture on "Parisian Cake."
During the 1920s and 1930s, the term "cinnamon sugar" was used in reference to cooking, primarily recommended as a garnish on desserts. While this spice mixture was mentioned in The New Zealand Journal of Agriculture in 1955, it would primarily appear in U.S.-publications, like the Illinois Rural Electric News in 1959, American Home in 1964, and the American Sugar Crystal Company's Crystal-ized Facts in 1967. In the 1970s and 1980s, the spice mixture was integrated into many cookbooks, and other publications, becoming a common topping for dessert dishes. By the early 1990s, cinnamon sugar within books about early childhood education and in a cookbook of the fraternity Beta Sigma Phi.
In the 21st century, the term has remained as staple of cookbooks, mostly when it comes to desserts, including vegan recipes.
In the United States cinnamon and sugar are "often used to flavour cereals, bread-based dishes, and fruits, especially apples," while in the Middle East cinnamon is "often used in savory dishes of chicken and lamb" and in the preparation of chocolate in Mexico. In South Africa there is a famous dessert pastry called melktert which is "lightly flavoured with cinnamon sugar."
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