Apple cinnamon water
Smells like a pie. Contains no pie.
This one works on your nose more than your tongue. Cinnamon is a powerful aroma and a weak flavour in cold water, so what you actually get is a faint apple sweetness carried by a smell that suggests something far more indulgent.
That is not a criticism. Drinking is largely smell, and a jug that smells like a bakery gets poured more often than a jug that smells like nothing.
It is also the infused water that works warm, which makes it the useful one from October onwards.
How to make it
- Hands on
- 5 min
- Total
- 4 h 5 min
- Makes
- 4 servings
- Per glass
- 8 kcal
Ingredients
Method
-
Slice the apple
Thin slices, skin on, core removed. A sweet red apple works far better than a sharp green one — you want it to read as sweet, not sour.
-
Use sticks, not powder
Drop in whole cinnamon sticks. Ground cinnamon does not dissolve; it makes a gritty brown sludge at the bottom of the jug and never tastes of much.
-
Chill for four hours
Cinnamon is slow in cold water. Four hours minimum, overnight for the full effect.
-
Serve
Cold over ice, or gently warmed in a mug when it turns cold outside.
Worth knowing
- The apple slices go brown. That is oxidation, it is harmless, and a squeeze of lemon slows it if the look bothers you.
- Cinnamon sticks can be rinsed and reused for a second jug — they still have plenty left.
What it actually does for you
- Calories
- 8 kcal
Aroma with almost nothing behind it. Cold water pulls very little out of a cinnamon stick and not much more out of apple slices, so this is close to flavoured water — which is the whole job. Do not expect the blood-sugar effects sometimes claimed for cinnamon; those studies use grams of the ground spice, not a stick sitting in a jug.
How this was worked out: One medium apple (about 180 g) holds roughly 95 kcal, 19 g sugar and 195 mg potassium (USDA FoodData Central, apples, raw, with skin). Infusion transfers a small fraction, so the 8 kcal per glass is an approximation and no mineral figure is claimed.
Variations
- Add a slice of fresh ginger for more warmth.
- Serve it warm with a spoon of honey as a caffeine-free evening drink.
Making it is the easy part
Remembering to drink it is the hard part. Honk watches your webcam with on-device AI and honks until you do, as gently or as loudly as you like.
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Does cinnamon water lower blood sugar?
Not in this form. The research people cite uses one to six grams of ground cinnamon eaten daily, and even there the results are mixed and modest. A cinnamon stick infusing in cold water delivers a tiny fraction of that. Make this because it smells good, not as a treatment.
Can you use ground cinnamon instead?
It does not work. Ground cinnamon will not dissolve in cold water — it floats, then sinks into a gritty layer, and the drink tastes dusty rather than spiced. Sticks only.
