According to >:
>I think the reason Steve wants to use powders instead of whole spices
>is that he's making his hot chocolate by pouring hot water in, rather
>than by simmering. I'm not sure you can really extract much flavour
>from a cinnamon stick just by sitting it in hot water. I could be
>wrong though!

Ah, I see what you mean. I assumed he was worried about it 'going off'
rather than being ineffective.

To go back to the original post - to convert from the 'real' items to
the powdered version, it's probably only possible to do by trial and
error, as a lot of these things are a case of personal taste anyhow.

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