Homemade Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments

These traditional homemade Christmas ornaments are a great craft for school age children. Use them to add a special touch to presents or give personalized ornaments to friends and co-workers without breaking the bank. They also make great homemade presents for your children's school teachers. Homemade applesauce Christmas ornaments combine favorite holiday spices for a scented gift. Purchase the applesauce and large quantities of cinnamon at discount stores to save money. There are two basic "recipes" for these ornaments. One requires baking and one requires long drying periods. Decide which way you want to go and let your kids enjoy this Christmas craft.

Baked Applesauce Ornaments

Materials:

At least one cup ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon ground cloves

About 1 cup applesauce (Remember, you can use the cheapest stuff since flavor is not important)

Straw or narrow wooden dowel

Add the nutmeg and cloves to the applesauce. Begin adding the ground cinnamon. Mix the spice and applesauce until you have dough. It should be thick enough to roll out with a rolling pin. Keep the dough between ¼ and ½ inch thick. If it is too thin the applesauce ornaments may break later.

Use Christmas and holiday themed cookie cutters to cut out ornament shapes from the applesauce dough. Poke a straw or thin stick through the top of the ornament to make a hole Use a spatula to move the ornament to an oven safe wire wrack. Bake them at 200 degrees for two hours. Remember, the ornaments do not have flour in them and will not rise, but the applesauce and spices need to bake very slowly to harden.

Smell the dough before baking. If you want you can add more nutmeg and ground cloves for a stronger scent. You could also use these spices instead of cinnamon, but they generally cost more in bulk.

No-Bake Applesauce Ornaments

Start with the same ingredients as above, but cut back to about ¾ cup applesauce. Add two tablespoons of white school glue to the applesauce. Then add the spices. Continue adding cinnamon until the dough is thick enough to roll out. Use the Christmas cookie cutters to shape the applesauce ornaments. Then, instead of baking, transfer the ornaments to a wire rack. Allow them to air dry for a few days. They will harden over time.

Once the ornaments are dry or baked, loop Christmas ribbon through the holes to make a hanger. Paint the craft ornaments, or use glue to add ribbons, sequins, glitter, buttons and other decorations.

Tips:

To make applesauce snowmen, use a snowman cookie cutter. Then press whole cloves into the dough for eyes and buttons. Use whole cloves in other applesauce ornaments designs, too. Get creative.

Sprinkle flour over the ornaments before baking or drying to resemble snow. This works great on snowmen.