Actual recipe I can't help with but there are several of them available at cooks.com.

http://www.cooks.com/rec/search/0,1-0,cinnamon_pickles,FF.html

Or you can just use the Cinnamon Pears or Cinnamon Apples Recipe and sub large chunks of cuke. That's what we do. There is so much vinegar in the recipe that subbing the cuke chunks poses no problems. The food coloring and red hots are optional but take care with it as it is easy to end up with bloody red ones.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Cinnamon Pears

I saw some of those too Dave. I am just wondering about the ratio of vinegar to water on some.
With all the sugar, is it still neceassry to maintain the traditional 1:1 ratio used for dills, etc.?

I also found several for watermelon rind pickles, but same issue.

The pear one you linked to has plenty of vinegar! Maybe I'll just use that one! I'm not sure I'm even going to do this, but I just found a "source" for a bunch of produce at $.50/#!!!! SCORE!
Local person, has excess. Toms, cukes, zukes, beans, garlic, etc. All at 50 cents! I pick some up tomorrow. I've only committed to some toms and 5# of beans so far, we'll see how everything looks when I get there!

Thanks!
Deanna

If it's the recipe that I'm thinking about, it's a 3 day recipe and uses red hot candies for the cinnamon. The original recipe also calls for alum and lime - though through much discussion on the Harvest forum, you can leave those out and do the recipe in two days.

If that sounds right, I'll be happy to dig out my recipe for you.

~ Tracy

I'd love to see your recipe Tracy. I don't really know what the recipe was, I just bought the finished product!
I'm trying to duplicate it.

They had green colored ones too. I'm not sure what they would have used for the candy in those!

It may be a recipe using cinnamon sticks and food coloring to make the two different colors they had available.

Deanna

Here is the original recipe:

Use large, oversized, cucumbers even if they are starting to yellow. Peel and slice 1/4 thick and remove seeds.

2 gal. sliced cucumbers
2 cups lime
8 1/2 cups water, enough to cover

Soak for 24 hours, drain and wash well. Cover with ice water and soak for 3 hours.

1 cup vinegar
1 T alum
1 bottle red food coloring

Add enough water to cover cucumbers. Put on stove and simmer (do not boil) for 2 hours. Drain and discard water. Mix, heat and pour over cucumbers the following,

2 cups water
2 cups vinegar
12 cups sugar
8 sticks cinnamon
1 cup red hot candies

For the next two mornings, drain off the liquid and reheat (do not boil) and add back to cucumbers. The third day, reheat juice and cucumbers together. Heat the cinnamon sticks each time. Leave lid on to steam. Put in jars and seal. You may put cinnamon sticks in jars or discard.

I wanted to make these last year and consulted with the FORUM. I skipped the first step of soaking in lime. I began with the ice water soak and omitted the alum. I placed pickle crisp in each jar before filling. And I processed in BWB for 10 minutes (or may have been 15, I'll have to double check that). They turned out pretty good. Be sure you use HUGE cucumbers.

~ Tracy

In some products, we can actually taste the slight bitterness of the red food coloring - even in red hots, so came up with an alternative last year that adds some color, but not that same red. When i made the syrup for these sort of pickles, i took a very large tea ball and filled it full with grated beet, and let the color diffuse in the vinegar-syrup mix. It makes for lovely pale pink pickles and the pickled spiced baby pears last year had a pink glow that made them look very special on the plate. It is fun to find the natural colorings, and i hope that sounds like a safe method. Would love to hear, if not!
Glad

Thanks Tracy!
I appreciate the notes on the changes you made as I would like to make the same ones!!

Glad, I have homemade pickles beets, I think I can use that juice for at least part of the 'coloring'. I would rather use natural colors as well, but not completely opposed to a little artificial if necessary (see my thread on Corum Cherries...LOL).

I might try some using turmeric too. Make a bright yellow version!! Red, green and yellow would make a pretty platter at Christmas!

Deanna

It's funny, because I was just on Allrecipes looking for a refrigerator cucumber salad recipe when I noticed this. Never heard of it before, and then, not an hour later I read this post on the GW forum. You'll have to get Carol or Linda Lou or someone to weigh in on the safety of it.

Here's a recipe for this from Allrecipes:

Christmas Red Pickles
INGREDIENTS (Nutrition)
7 pounds large cucumbers
1 cup pickling lime (calcium hydroxide)
2 teaspoons red food coloring
1 teaspoon powdered alum
1 cup distilled white vinegar
7 cups white sugar
2 cups distilled white vinegar
2 cups water
1 cup cinnamon red hot candies
4 cinnamon sticks

DIRECTIONS
Peel cucumbers, halve lengthwise, and scrape out the seeds with a spoon. Cut the cucumber into 1/4 inch half circles, and place into a glass or ceramic crock. Dissolve the pickling lime in about 1 quart of room temperature water, pour over the cucumbers, then add additional water until the cucumbers are covered by 1/2 inch. Let stand at room temperature 24 hours.

Drain the cucumbers and rinse well with cold water. Place into a large stockpot, and cover with cold water. Allow to stand for 3 hours, then drain and rinse again.
Return the cucumbers to the pot, add the food coloring, alum, 1 cup vinegar, and enough water to cover by 1/2 inch. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce heat to a simmer, and cook 2 hours. Once the cucumbers have cooked for 2 hours, drain and allow to cool a bit before placing into the glass or ceramic jar.

Stir together 2 cups vinegar, 2 cups water, cinnamon red hot candies, and cinnamon sticks in a saucepan over medium heat until the sugar and candies dissolve. Pour this mixture over the warm cucumbers, cover, and let stand overnight.

Pack pickles into pint jars, and process in a hot water bath for 15 to 20 minutes. Refrigerate any jars that do not seal.

I'm curious about what you mean by safe. Safe from what??

Flower Girl'
"Safe" means safe for human consumption. Many old recipes floating around in you mothers and grandmothers time were NOT safe by todays standards.
Safe recipes usually means a recipe tested by a Govt. office on the federal or state level.
Many of the recipes on the internet are NOT safe as they have not been tested or originated at a time before testing was done. They also could be from other parts of the world where testing standards do not exist or are less stringent than those in the US.
Hope this helps.
Jim in So. Calif.

Yes, what Jim said is what I meant.
Because cucumbers are low acid veggies, it's important that they have the correct amount of acid added in the recipe.

I still haven't tried anything. I may or may not depending on time and availability of the over size cukes.

I appreciate all the ideas and recipes! If not this year, maybe next!!

Deanna

I make these with zucchini, using the first recipe that Joy Unspeakable posted. I prefer to use zucchini that are 6-8 inches long and no more than 2 - 2 1/2 inches in diameter. First peel the zucchini, then cut out the centers with the "hole cutter" from a doughnut cutter. This usually gets all of the seed canal area. Use a small paring knife to remove any remaining seed area. If I have larger zucchini, I remove the seed area with a paring knife and cut the rings into 1/2 moon shape pieces.

I made a total of 11 pints this past week.

For the green ones I use either zucchini or cucumbers and a different recipe, "Lime pickles". Again, I prefer the smaller size produce. If using cucumbers, I just cut the cukes into bite size chunks and leave the seed area. And I don't bother to peel the cukes.

These are great at holiday time as a condiment pickle!!

It's real easy to use too much red or green coloring. You want just enough to get a pretty color, but not over done. The simmering process will "set" the coloring and intensify it.

I process in a BWB for a minimum of 10 minutes.

Ms. Donnie

Dave, going back to your comment from August 3, 2009 at 2:54PM:

Do you presoak the cucumber chunks in salt water solution? And do you use pickle crisp in the jars? I like the common Christmas pickle recipe but want to make them without doing the lime soak. Thanks!

It depends on the degree of crisp you want. We don't use lime for much of anything anymore. But we routinely do the salted ice soak for most any pickle and yes we use Pickle Crisp in them. You can skip the soak but they will be softer.

Dave

Thank you Dave! I will do both the soak and the pickle crisp. One of the great qualities of that pickle is the crispness.