I Am Begging You to Dip a Mandarin in Cinnamon Sugar

I’m good at cooking meals, but bad at eating them. My preferred method of food consumption is snacking, also known as “luxurious grazing.” I like to lay out an array of little treats, with varying flavours and textures to create a wide variety of what my friend Catie calls “mouth experiences.” This little fruit snack is my favourite new mouth experience.

I did a lot of luxurious grazing last night. I started with some chips, moved on to feta and caper marinated chicken (for work), made a little cheese plate with some MSG pickles, ate a doughnut, made and consumed two pieces of toast (one garlic and one cinnamon sugar) then rounded out the evening by inhaling far too many mandarins. While eating the fruit, my gaze lingered on the cinnamon sugar I had used to make my toast.

“Should I?” I thought.

I did, and it was the right call. Dipping a segment of mandarin (or any tart and sweet citrus fruit) into cinnamon sugar is something everyone should do. It tastes like candy, like Christmas, like all of the good parts of winter and none of the bad. It’s bright and juicy, sweet and tangy, and warm and inviting — it’s a welcoming, comforting little fruit snack, and I cannot stop eating it. (It’s dusting your wets, fruit edition.)

My preferred method is peeling the fruit, removing the most aggressive white stringy bits, and dipping each segment into a pile of cinnamon sugar, using Jennifer Garner’s ratio of 3 tablespoons granulated sugar and 2 teaspoons cinnamon. You could also peel and slice the clementines with a knife (to remove even more pith), or even supreme the little guys, and arrange the slices artfully on a plate before sprinkling the sweet and heady mixture on top of the citrus. I really don’t care how you do it, just get these little jewels into your mouth immediately; they really are the best of what winter has to offer.