Homemade Cinnamon Baking Chips Recipe
Do you love cinnamon muffins, scones, cookies, and more? You have to try this simple Homemade Cinnamon Baking Chips Recipe. THEY ARE AMAZING!
Cinnamon baking chips can be surprisingly hard to find, and when you do find them online, they can be expensive. Luckily, they are incredibly easy to make at home with just a handful of pantry ingredients. They take only a few minutes to mix together and are perfect for adding little pockets of cinnamon flavor to muffins, scones, cookies, breads, and more.
Do you know when you get one of those snickerdoodle or cinnamon swirl muffins and it has that little pocket of cinnamony goodness inside? That is caused by these Cinnamon Baking Chips….who knew? I certainly didn’t. I mean I guess I just took for granted that the cinnamon fairy waved her wand and made my muffin that much more special. This easy Homemade Cinnamon Baking Chips Recipe will have you wanting to bake all of the cinnamon treats.
Ingredients
You only need 5 simple ingredients to make homemade cinnamon chips, and there’s a good chance you already have most of them in your pantry.
- Granulated sugar
- ground cinnamon
- Shortening: Vegetable shortening works perfectly, but coconut oil, palm oil, or lard can also be used. Readers have also reported success using butter, although the finished texture may vary slightly.
- light corn syrup
- vanilla extract
You will also need a baking sheet, mixing bowl, parchment paper and an oven.
What Are Cinnamon Baking Chips?
Homemade cinnamon baking chips aren’t quite the same as chocolate chips or candy-style baking chips straight from the bag. These are softer and are designed to melt again when they’re baked into your favorite recipes.
Once baked into muffins, cookies, scones, or breads, they create delicious little pockets of cinnamon-sugar flavor throughout. So don’t worry if your homemade chips aren’t rock-hard after they cool; that’s exactly how they’re supposed to be!
How to Make Cinnamon Chips
Step 1: Mix the ingredients.
Combine the sugar, cinnamon, shortening, corn syrup, and vanilla until evenly mixed and crumbly.
Step 2: Press onto the baking sheet.
Spread the mixture onto a parchment-lined baking sheet and press it into an even layer about ¼-inch thick.
Step 3: Bake.
Bake until the mixture is melted and bubbly.
Step 4: Cool completely.
Let the cinnamon mixture cool before breaking or cutting it into small baking-chip-sized pieces.
Step 5: Use or store.
Use them immediately in your favorite recipe or transfer them to an airtight container for later.
Mix them into muffins, pancakes, cookies, and so much more. We have used them in these Easy Pancake Bites and in the BEST Mini Snickerdoodle Muffins. YUM!
Gluten-Free & Vegan
Not everyone thinks about how hard it is to find gluten free or vegan baking ingredients. These tasty tidbits are both. Another reason I love these Cinnamon Baking Chips!
Cinnamon Chip Flavor Variations
Once you’ve made the original recipe, it’s easy to experiment with the spices. Replace some or all of the cinnamon with another warm spice blend to create different baking chips.
Pumpkin Spice: Use pumpkin pie spice for a fall version.
Gingerbread: Try gingerbread spice for holiday baking.
Cardamom: Readers have also reported making a cardamom version successfully.
How to Use Homemade Cinnamon Chips
Use these anywhere you’d normally use cinnamon baking chips. They’re delicious in muffins, scones, cookies, quick breads, pancakes, cinnamon rolls, and more.
Keep in mind that these chips are designed to melt into your baked goods, creating pockets of cinnamon flavor rather than staying completely firm like a chocolate chip.
How to Store Homemade Cinnamon Chips
Store your homemade cinnamon chips in an airtight container in the refrigerator. For longer storage, they can also be frozen.
Because they’re softer than commercially manufactured baking chips, I prefer keeping them chilled until I’m ready to bake with them.
Tips From Making These Over the Years
I’ve made these homemade cinnamon chips many times over the years, and there are a few things worth knowing:
They aren’t supposed to be hard. The finished chips stay softer than commercial baking chips. Their magic happens when you bake with them.
Let them cool completely. They’re much easier to break into small pieces once the mixture has cooled.
Ovens vary. You want the cinnamon mixture melted and bubbly before removing it from the oven. If it isn’t there yet, it may need a little more time or a slightly higher temperature.
Don’t judge them until you bake with them! They melt into little pockets of cinnamon-sugar flavor inside your finished baked goods—that’s exactly what they’re designed to do.
Cinnamon Baking Chips FAQ
That’s normal! Homemade cinnamon chips don’t become as firm as commercial baking chips. They’re designed to melt again when baked into muffins, cookies, scones, and breads.
Yes. They soften and melt into your baked goods, creating little pockets of cinnamon-sugar flavor throughout.
Vegetable shortening gives me consistent results, but readers have reported successfully making these with butter. Coconut oil, palm oil, and lard can also work, although changing the fat may slightly change the finished texture.
Oven temperatures can vary. The mixture should be melted and bubbly before you remove it from the oven. If it isn’t there yet, give it a little more time.
Yes. Store them in an airtight freezer-safe container and pull out what you need when you’re ready to bake.
They’re delicious in muffins, cookies, scones, quick breads, pancakes, cinnamon rolls, and other baked goods. Because homemade cinnamon chips melt when baked, they create pockets of cinnamon flavor throughout the finished recipe.
Homemade Cinnamon Baking Chips
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2/3 cup sugar
- 3 tablespoons ground cinnamon
- 2 tablespoons vegetable shortening
- 2 tablespoons light corn syrup
- ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 200F. Place a sheet of parchment paper on a cookie sheet and spray liberally with cooking spray. Set aside.
- In a medium size bowl, combine the granulated sugar, ground cinnamon, shortening, light corn syrup and vanilla extract. Mix with fork until the mixture is uniform and crumbly. Spread on parchment lined baking sheet, flattening with your hands and shaping into a rough square about 1/4 inch or so thick. Bake until mixture is melted and somewhat bubbly, about 30 minutes.
- Cool completely, and then cut into small pieces.
- Makes approximately 2 cups
Notes
Originally posted in 2015 updated in 2026.
These look ingenious! Can’t wait to try them out, was always frustrated that the store bought aren’t vegan. A couple of questions; how well do these melt if at all, and how long do they keep?
They melt very nicely, leaving perfect pockets of cinnamon goodness in your baked goods.
These are awesome in muffins and scones. It is a great recipe and I always make extra, seal in an air tight container and refrigerate the extra so they are handy when I am baking. I have kept them in the fridge for 6 months and they were still great. So easy, and best of all, I know what is in them! Thanks for the recipe
Hi is there anything I could use instead of vegetable shortening? Could I use butter or vegetable oil or coconut oil?
Thanks
Hi Cyndi,
You can totally use coconut oil or butter. 🙂
LOVE LOVE LOVE!! I know this is an older review so not sure if this will even go anywhere or be read by anyone! But WOW! Such a saving grace when you can’t find cinnamon chips! I also live in Canada (Toronto) so of course no Hershey‘s cinnamon chippits here! But I do vacation in Florida frequently and cross-border by car to Buffalo all the time and lately I’ve been having a very difficult time finding the cinnamon chips! So… This recipe is AWESOME and a lifesaver! They are perfect! And YES… The house smelled beyond sinful and incredible while baking! I found a copycat recipe for Cobbs cinnamon scones and OMG… These were perfect! Thank you for this. Everyone stay safe and healthy!
Thank you, thank you, thank you! So many recipes seem to call for cinnamon chips that I have been wanting to try but up here in Canada for whatever reason cinnamon chips are nearly impossible to find! I could easily do a cross border shopping trip but that seems a bit extreme for one item lol. Now I can bake anything I want, and cinnamon is a huge favorite of mine. And with Christmas just around the corner (boy did that sneak up fast!) I have a feeling I’ll be making a few batches of this to do my baking with! 🙂
I live in Canada also and had only found Hershey’s cinnamon chips in the US many years ago. Used the last of them not long ago, even though they were expired. Have searched on many visits for years, to no avail. Happy to find this recipe?
Will these melt again when baked inside of breads/cookies/muffins etc or will they be a crunchy chip?
They melt again to create a little pocket of cinnamon inside of your baked goods. SO SO GOOD! 🙂
Thank you for sharing this I couldn’t find any this year. Can’t wait to try this
These are fantastic. I make them all the time!
Made these today. The house smells delicious! Thanks so much for posting this!
I can’t stand cinnamon so I made some with cardamom. Wonderful. I also made some with gingerbread spices and molasses for my daughter. Thanks for your tips!
What a great idea! Cardamom chips would be great in anything with apples.
Terrific! I can’t find cinnamon baking chips locally and 20 oz is $11.95 from King Arthur flour I was thrilled to find your recipe.
Thank you for posting. I can’t wait to try this in my favorite scone recipe
Genius! I can’t wait to try! Thank you!
thanks so much for this, my local store has the best cinnamon scones and when I asked what the cinnamon pieces were, she said they were shaved cinnamon chips which aren’t available locally! Can’t wait to get these in the oven!
It is SO difficult to find cinnamon chips, so this came in handy! These came out fantastic! Very easy to make. They do spread out a bit if they are at the edge of a cookie, but if you push them back into the cookie with a spatula right after pulling them out of the oven, you can’t even tell!
I was excited to make these tonight when I found the recipe as I’m running out of my supply of Hershey’s Cinnamon Chips which I had found in the States. (I live in Canada and they’re not sold here). Unfortunately, they turned out chewy and grainy. They don’t melt in your mouth like Hershey’s do. I followed the recipe exactly, so not sure why they didn’t turn out right.
Ali, the post doesn’t claim that these are like Hershey’s at all. They are cinnamon baking chips that can be mixed into baked goods to create little pockets of cinnamon sugar. The chips themselves are a bit grainy since they are made with granulated sugar. While they are delicious, they aren’t for just eating on their own. Now, if you made a muffin or a banana bread and mixed these in, I think you would be pleasantly surprised with the results.
Thanks for responding. Do you think they could be used successfully in the cinnamon oatmeal raisin cookie recipe found on the Hershey cinnamon chips bag? I’m specifically wondering if the graininess and chewiness are eliminated during the baking process.
Was able to try these in my banana bread today, and you were right! They melted into little pockets of cinnamon throughout. The graininess was all gone! I was so pleased how well they worked out!
Amazing. Now I see why folks buy cinnamon in bulk!
I am SO happy to find your recipe. It’s in the oven now and you’re right, the house smells delicious! I’m about to make cinnamon chip scones for hubby & couldn’t find the chips in store so I’m smiling in your general direction for saving the day:)
These are absolutely De-lish!!! I have a snickerdoodle bread recipe that calls for Hershey cinnamon chips and none of our stores carry them. I’m so glad I found your recipe they make the bread taste amazing! I made 8 loaves this weekend! I was wondering, could you use cocoa powder instead of cinnamon to make chocolate chips??
Wow did these make the house smell awesome but they were great in cinnamon chip scones. It very hard to grind cinnamon chips for some reason now I do not have to go to a million stores in hopes to find them when I get craving!!!!
Thank you for this recipe. I have tried to find cinnamon chips for months to no avail and buying them online was pricey. Can’t wait to use them in my coffee cake recipe which I will be making for breakfast tomorrow. Thanks again
I’ve had cinnamon chip pancakes at the restaurant and loved them. Since I like homemade this was perfect in my pancakes. I’m going to try them in other things too. Thanks sharing the recipe
King Arthur Flour has a recipe for an “easy cinnamon bread” on its website, but I didn’t want to go from store to store in search of chips. This recipe was so easy, and the bread turned out perfectly. I will definitely take your advice to make multiple batches.
Wow! I have been waiting to find cinnamon chips in the store for a year wanting to try a Snickerdoodle Bread recipe. I found this recipe when I was looking for a substitution for cinnamon chips. I will never buy the real thing! This recipe was delicious. Mine was a bit like taffy because I only had vegetable oil but it still melted into pockets of cinnamon as described. Thank you! Thank you for sharing this recipe!
I baked mine for 40 minutes and they never bubbled. I put the sheet of cookies in a food processor and pulsed a couple of times. They were phenomenal! I love them and have printed this recipe so I can use it again and again!
I baked mine just as the recipe said except I used butter instead of shortening. They turned out amazing.
These have way more flavor than store bought. I used them in a cinnamon bundt coffee cake adding these put it over the top… I gave recipe to another they made snicker doodle cookies she said they were the best yet…Never buy them again..
Turned out great, I have not tried them yet in something, I think I’m going to make scones. I think I’m going to try and make a creamier chip by melting a white chocolate baking bar and add cinnamon or cinnamon oil, then spread it out, and when it hardens just chop it up
Thank you for this recipe. I live in Wyoming and cannot find cinnamon chips here either.
I mixed mine up using a pastry blender and I found it easier on my hands (arthritis). I’m going to use them in granola bars, but I can see using them in other baked goods in the near future.
I just made some and they are delicious. I’m making bagels and going to use them in the dough. I’m excited to see how they turn out.
I had a craving for cinnamon chip scones and can’t find the chips anywhere, so I stumbled across this recipe. I was skeptical that it would turn out, but the texture and flavor are outstanding. These chips are excellent in scones. I think I’ll stir the rest of them into some oatmeal cookies.
5 stars for the mix. They have so much flavor! They are absolutely amazing. I’m giving the recipe 5 stars with a but. I never got any bubbling at 200 degrees F. I had to up my oven to 350 before I got any bubbling or melting/combining. Trivial…but wanted to post this in case it helps someone else.
I am using them in my cinnamon crunch bagels. A gazillion times better than the store bought crap that doesn’t even list cinnamon as an ingredient. So much flavor. Other tidbits…because I do not want corn syrup in anything I eat or bake for others, I changed that to locally sourced, organic, raw honey. And instead of vegetable shortening I used coconut oil. Used the same measurements, just all-natural, organic, and far less inflammatory ingredients.
I make these all the time for my cinnamon scones. Thank you for such a wonderful and easy recipe.
These are in the oven right now. King Arthur website has apple cinnamon scones and my dad loves scones, so trying this out. This is due to an attempt to find cinnamon chips and I was going to have to pay over $10 a bag. No thanks, I will try these instead. Thanks for posting!
I didn’t feel like going to the store for one ingredient, so I found this recipe, and I’m so glad I did!! I rolled them out a little thinner than instructed and baked them about 10 extra minutes at 225 F (until they looked bubbly like the author’s), and they turned out perfect. I used the chips in some Pumpkin-Apple-Cinnamon bars, and they melted in amazingly. Who would ever need to buy cinnamon chips after this recipe??!!
These are fantastic, I have made a couple batches. Thanks so very much for sharing this recipe! I think cinnamon should be one of the food groups we need every single day for good health. Lol
I do not have shortening on hand, I just don’t want to use that crap from the store. I believe beef tallow will work great. getting it out of my container is always a struggle once it solidifies. I haven’t made these in so long, are we melting the shortening/tallow before mixing it with the other ingredients? I presume so. The more I think about it, I am not too sure how else I would do it. Tallow is rock hard, I can’t recall how hard lard is but don’t think it is anywhere close to as solid as tallow.
Thanks for a great addition to my muffins and scones.
Thank you for this amazing recipe.. I will never buy them again. Do you have a recommendation for making a maple version of this? I want to make french toast cookies, but the maple crunch from Canada, although delicious, is very expensive.