Gingerbread is enjoyed around the world by millions who love nothing more than building the traditional house for Christmas. No other sweet encapsulates the holiday season more than gingerbread with its distinctive taste and heady, spiced aroma. And the anticipation of sticking dozens of sweets on a house, making it the centrepiece of the festive celebrations is like no other. But it’s not a new confection, having been around for thousands of years.
Gingerbread may be massive in America, but it was actually in Europe that it first became popular. The roots of gingerbread can be traced back to Ancient Greece and the Egyptians who used it in ceremonies. Ginger root was also cultivated by the ancient Chinese, but it didn’t make an appearance in Europe until Medieval times. Crusaders brought it back from the Middle East via the Silk Road, an important network of trade routes connecting East and West, as an exotic spice for the upper classes to experiment with.
It was a favoured spice due to its strong scent and ability to hide the smell of decaying meat, hundreds of years before fridges were invented! Henry VIII is even said to have taken a concoction containing ginger in the belief it would help protect him from the plague.
As ginger and other spices became more prevalent and therefore cheaper, more and more people began to experiment with it. Europeans would mix stale breadcrumbs, ginger, rosewater and sugar into a paste and press it into wooden moulds. These moulds were carved in the likeness of kings and queens and once dry, would be decorated with white icing or more expensive gold paint.
Gingerbread cookies became a regular feature at Medieval fairs and were sometimes exchanged as tokens of love. Later, the breadcrumbs were replaced with flour by the English who also added sugar and eggs. So, the story goes, the first gingerbread man came about because of Elizabeth I who wowed visiting dignitaries with gingerbread biscuits created in their likeness.
The cookies were very popular, and the fairs even became known as Gingerbread Fairs with the shape and decorations changing with the seasons. These highly prized and intricately decorated hard biscuits represented everything that was considered fancy and up market in England.
But it was in 16th Century Germany that gingerbread houses first began to appear. The Germans turned cookies into elaborately decorated homes decorated with foil as well as gold leaf. Gingerbread houses received a huge boost in popularity thanks to the Brothers’ Grimm story Hansel and Gretel.
Gingerbread arrived in America along with the English colonists and has been a much-loved confection ever since. Today it is a baked sweet, sometimes soft sometimes hard, filled with ginger (naturally!), cinnamon, cloves, mixed spice and molasses, brown sugar, golden syrup or honey depending on the recipe.
Gingerbread today can be thin crisp cookies, soft biscuits, or moist cake. And of course it can be shaped like a house, or just about anything else you can think of!
Gingerbread house on old wooden table, filtered image
The History of Gingerbread
Gingerbread is enjoyed around the world by millions who love nothing more than building the traditional house for Christmas. No other sweet encapsulates the holiday season more than gingerbread with its distinctive taste and heady, spiced aroma. And the anticipation of sticking dozens of sweets on a house, making it the centrepiece of the festive celebrations is like no other. But it’s not a new confection, having been around for thousands of years.
Gingerbread may be massive in America, but it was actually in Europe that it first became popular. The roots of gingerbread can be traced back to Ancient Greece and the Egyptians who used it in ceremonies. Ginger root was also cultivated by the ancient Chinese, but it didn’t make an appearance in Europe until Medieval times. Crusaders brought it back from the Middle East via the Silk Road, an important network of trade routes connecting East and West, as an exotic spice for the upper classes to experiment with.
It was a favoured spice due to its strong scent and ability to hide the smell of decaying meat, hundreds of years before fridges were invented! Henry VIII is even said to have taken a concoction containing ginger in the belief it would help protect him from the plague.
As ginger and other spices became more prevalent and therefore cheaper, more and more people began to experiment with it. Europeans would mix stale breadcrumbs, ginger, rosewater and sugar into a paste and press it into wooden moulds. These moulds were carved in the likeness of kings and queens and once dry, would be decorated with white icing or more expensive gold paint.
Gingerbread cookies became a regular feature at Medieval fairs and were sometimes exchanged as tokens of love. Later, the breadcrumbs were replaced with flour by the English who also added sugar and eggs. So, the story goes, the first gingerbread man came about because of Elizabeth I who wowed visiting dignitaries with gingerbread biscuits created in their likeness.
The cookies were very popular, and the fairs even became known as Gingerbread Fairs with the shape and decorations changing with the seasons. These highly prized and intricately decorated hard biscuits represented everything that was considered fancy and up market in England.
But it was in 16th Century Germany that gingerbread houses first began to appear. The Germans turned cookies into elaborately decorated homes decorated with foil as well as gold leaf. Gingerbread houses received a huge boost in popularity thanks to the Brothers’ Grimm story Hansel and Gretel.
Gingerbread arrived in America along with the English colonists and has been a much-loved confection ever since. Today it is a baked sweet, sometimes soft sometimes hard, filled with ginger (naturally!), cinnamon, cloves, mixed spice and molasses, brown sugar, golden syrup or honey depending on the recipe.
Gingerbread today can be thin crisp cookies, soft biscuits, or moist cake. And of course it can be shaped like a house, or just about anything else you can think of!