Gingerbread in cake form

Gingerbread is a sweet dessert that can take the form of a cake or a cookie in which the predominant flavors are ginger and molasses or sugar.

[edit] History

Traditional Toruń gingerbread

A Lebkuchen house

Gingerbread was brought to Europe by the Crusaders.^[1]

Early references from the Vadstena monastery show how the Swedish nuns were baking gingerbread to ease digestion in the year 1444.^[2]

During the 1200s, it was brought to Sweden by German immigrants. It was the custom to bake white cookies and paint them as window decorations. The first documented trade of gingerbread cookies dates to the 1500's, where they were sold in monastery pharmacies and town square farmers markets. 100 years later the town of Market Drayton in Shropshire, UK became known for its gingerbread, as is proudly decreed on their town's welcome sign. The first recorded mention of gingerbread being baked in the town dates back to 1793; however, it was probably made earlier, as ginger was stocked in high street businesses from the 1640s. Gingerbread became widely available in the 1700s.

Originally, the term gingerbread (from Latin zingiber via Old French gingebras) referred to preserved ginger, then to a confection made with honey and spices. Gingerbread is often translated into French as pain d'épices (literally "spice bread"). Pain d'épices is a French pastry also made with honey and spices, but not crispy.

[edit] Varieties

Scandinavian-style gingerbread cookies

A gingerbread house

As a cookie (or biscuit in the UK), gingerbread can be made into a thin, crisp cookie(often called a ginger snap) or a softer cookie similar to the German Lebkuchen. Gingerbread cookies are typically cut into shapes, particularly that of gingerbread men. Traditionally, it was dunked in port wine.

The lesser-known cake form tends to be a dense, treaclely (molasses-based) spice cake or bread. Some recipes add mustard, pepper, raisins, nuts, and/or other spices/ingredients to the batter. In one variation, the bread omits raisins or nuts and is served with warm lemon sauce. In the United States, the bread is more typically served in winter, particularly at Christmas time. Parkin is a form of gingerbread made with oatmeal and treacle which is popular in the North of England. It is traditionally eaten on Bonfire Night.

Gingerbreads are known in Russia. The most famous gingerbreads there are baked in the ancient cities Tula (Tula gingerbread), Vyazma, Gorodets.

[edit] Gingerbread houses and decorations

Gingerbread is often used to build gingerbread houses similar to the "witch's house" encountered by Hansel and Gretel. These houses, covered with a variety of candies and icing, are popular Christmas decorations,^[1] often built by children with the help of their guardians.

Another variant uses a boiled dough that can be molded like clay to form inedible statuettes or other decorations. Medieval bakers used carved boards to create elaborate designs.^[1]

A significant form of popular art in Europe,^{[citation needed]} major centers of gingerbread mould carvings included Lyon, Nürnberg, Pest, Prague, Pardubice, Pulsnitz, Ulm, and Toruń. Gingerbread moulds often displayed the "news", showing carved portraits of new kings, emperors, and queens, for example.^{[citation needed]} Substantial mould collections are held at the Ethnographic Museum in Toruń, Poland and the Bread Museum in Ulm, Germany.

[edit] See also

• Gingerbread man
• Victorian architecture - Gingerbread house example

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Gingerbread

Wikibooks Cookbook has a recipe/module on Gingerbread

• Gingerbread at the Open Directory Project
• Gingerbread house recipe and building techniques