Though cinnamon has been well known in Europe for centuries, we owe our first cinnamon ganache to King Carol II of Romania.
Cinnamon was introduced in Europe from Asia at the end of the Middle Ages (the best being from Sri Lanka) and was immediately associated with sugar, quite a nice combination. Before being King in 1930, Carol was exiled in France and lived in a small town in south Normandy, Saint Martin de Bellème, in an old castle where Saint-Louis (Louis IX: 1214 – 1270) resided a few days with his mother, Blanche de Castille, while besieging the city of Bellème. He was an emeritus pilot and a cinnamon lover.
Carol was a patron of Debauve & Gallais. One day, in the year 1925, while visiting Paris as he often did, he asked us to make him a bar (to take with him more easily when indulging in flying) filled with a cinnamon ganache. He had been rather dissatisfied with the cinnamon candies made by his own chef, but we succeeded in making the bar to his satisfaction . However, because this ganache was made with the essential oil of cinnamon, the taste was strong and often overwhelming for other connoisseurs. We soon produced a bonbon filled with a ganache prepared with a cinnamon bark infusion, which customers welcomed. After Carol returned to Romania in 1930 we went on to ship chocolates to Bucarest, but soon the king was too busy with arising dangers both inside and outside his country to indulge in such passions.