I am allergic to cinnamon.

…There, I said it. I do indeed have a food allergy.
I can claim my place amongst the estimated 12 million Americans that also have a food allergy.

Apparently, cinnamon allergy is not necessarily as rare as some people believe it to be. True, its not nearly as prevalent as nut, wheat, milk or shellfish allergy, but there are more than a couple people with cinnamon allergy.

Luckily, as with most people who are allergic to cinnamon, the symptoms are fairly mild. Speaking for myself, whatever part of my body comes in contact with the spice is what shows the effects. If I eat the spice, my lips, cheeks and tongue neverbashfulwithbutter.comhttp://www.neverbashfulwithbutter.comswell up. My throat gets tingly. If I get cinnamon or cinnamon oil on my skin, then I break out in a rash. Its very mild.

I found out I was allergic to cinnamon over time, through a combination of events that were memorable enough to look back and think “hmm.. I might want to see someone about this.”

…Like the day I went to work and brought a giant box of Mike and Ike candy to share with my co-workers. There are two different shades of red candy in the Mike and Ike box, neither of which is cinnamon. I never was a big fan of cinnamon growing up, so I usually avoided red candies, but since I knew Mike and Ikes were only fruit flavours, they were safe to me. Then another co-worker comes in, sees the giant box of Mike and Ikes, goes to the vending machine and buys a box of Hot Tamales, and pours them into the pre existing box of Mike and Ikes (they’re made by the same company and the candy is identical) without telling anyone.

I put my hand in the box a little later, fished out a red candy and assuming it was cherry, gobbled it down. Much to my chagrin, I discovered that it wasn’t in fact cherry, but a very spicey, hot, cinnamon. I spat it out.

Not more than 2 minutes goes by and my coworkers start noticing that my lips were bright red. One of them asks me if I decided to be girly and wear lipstick that day, and I started to say “no, why would I dress up to work here?” Sarcastically. But what came out was closer to “snow, why woo I stress ups dwork here?” My tongue had swollen to the point where speaking wasn’t exactly a good idea. It was then that I wrote on a slip of paper “ WHO PUT THE CINNAMON CANDIES IN MY MIKE AND IKES?” Someone fessed up, but really.. what can ya do?

Anyways, After this, I took a job in a bakery. One of my primary jobs was making the cinnamon rolls. Large quantities of cinnamon and bare forearms (I wore gloves and my sleeves went to my elbows) left me with a bit of a skin rash that I only broke out in after the cinnamon roll assembling part of my shift.

Finally I went and had an allergy test at the doctor, and found out that I have a very mild allergy to cinnamon and cassia, which is a spice so similar to cinnamon that in many cases, it is used in place of cinnamon, because its cheaper.

However, after all of this talk of allergies, mouth swelling and arm rashes.. I am not able to shake my love of cinnamon, and so I often find myself weighing the consequences against the flavour, and the flavour almost always wins.

And so when I made these dark chocolate cupcakes, as I held the measure of cinnamon above the batter, I said to myself, “I’ll only eat one, it’ll be alright” and added it. The smell was heavenly, and I did not regret my decision.

Recipe for Dark Chocolate Cinnamon Cupcakes-

Makes 12 cupcakes

8 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
½ cup Dutch-processed cocoa
2 tablespoons cinnamon
3/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon baking powder
2 large eggs
¾ cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon table salt
½ cup sour cream

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard-sized muffin pan with baking-cup liners.

Combine butter, chocolate, and cocoa in medium heatproof bowl. Set bowl over saucepan containing barely simmering water; heat mixture until butter and chocolate are melted and whisk until smooth and combined. Set aside to cool until just warm to the touch.

Whisk flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and baking powder in small bowl to combine.

Whisk eggs in second medium bowl to combine; add sugar, vanilla, and salt and whisk until fully incorporated. Add cooled chocolate mixture and whisk until combined. Sift about one-third of flour mixture over chocolate mixture and whisk until combined; whisk in sour cream until combined, then sift remaining flour mixture over and whisk until batter is thick.

Divide batter evenly among muffin pan cups. Bake until skewer inserted into center of cupcakes comes out clean, 18 to 20 minutes.

When the cupcakes have cooled, mix together a half teaspoon of cinnamon with 3 tablespoons powdered sugar. Sift a light coating of the mixture on top of the cupcakes. No frosting necessary.

Also, just a little extra tidbit here, You might have heard about the “Cinnamon challenge” on the internet.

While I guess I can see how someone who has knocked back a few cold ones might find it to be a good idea to then try and ingest a spoon full of cinnamon, it’s much wiser to stay away from this “challenge” Cinnamon is a dessecant, which basically means that it sucks the moisture out of things. Like your mouth. If you do try to eat a spoon full of cinnamon, you WILL choke. And then you will breathe in cinnamon powder, causing you to cough. And it will be painful.

I know everyone likes a food challenge, so why not do something less dangerous, like chugging maple syrup.*smile*

-A.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 1st, 2008 at 3:14 am and is filed under October 2007, The Cupcakes!. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.