gingerbread

gingerbread, sweetened, spiced cookie, bread, or cake popular in North America and Europe in fall and winter. Many variations of gingerbread exist, including, for example, Lebkuchen (Germany), marranitos (Mexico), pryaniki (Russia), and pepparkakor (Sweden). Gingerbread is commonly associated with Christmas and other holidays, when it is often cut into fanciful shapes and elaborately decorated. Traditional gingerbread recipes include flour, butter, eggs, molasses (or treacle or honey), and ginger as well as other warming spices, such as clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, or allspice. Citrus, vanilla, or leavening agents may be added. The ginger may be fresh, powdered, or crystallized (candied), with some recipes calling for a combination of these.

Ginger (Zingiber officinale) is the spicy, flavorful underground stem (rhizome) of a plant that probably originated in Southeast Asia, where it has been used as food and for medicinal purposes for thousands of years. Ginger was one of the first Asian exports of the spice trade, arriving to the Mediterranean region by the 1st century ce. There are surviving recipes for gingerbread from ancient Egypt and ancient Greece. Many of these early recipes called for honey and spices to sweeten and flavor stale grated bread; the resulting confection was used primarily for ceremonial purposes. Because ginger and other spices were an imported rarity, gingerbread was considered a treat and a display of wealth throughout the Middle Ages.

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Some food historians suggest that an Armenian monk, Gregory of Nicopolis, brought gingerbread to France in 992 on a mission to teach other monks the art of making gingerbread. It is accepted that by the 11th century ginger had spread more broadly throughout Europe with the return of the Crusaders from the Middle East, and gingerbread in a form somewhat similar to its modern cousin began to be made. By the late 13th century monks in Germany were using carved molds to make Lebkuchen gingerbread featuring religious scenes for edible and decorative religious instruction.

Gingerbread’s popularity continued to spread as spices became more accessible, though the treat remained associated with special occasions. It was sold at fairs in France and England in the form of a hard cookie, molded to resemble the king on horseback or in silly shapes to appeal to children. These were sometimes decorated with bits of gold leaf or sugarcoated caraway seeds and referred to as “fairings.” It was about this time that some countries in Europe began to sanction official gingerbread baking guilds to protect the integrity of recipes.

In Elizabethan England (1558–1603), gingerbread was described as a cake or paste intended to help with digestion, and it was typically eaten as a sweet final course. Queen Elizabeth I is credited with inventing the gingerbread man, after she instructed her bakers to create gingerbread biscuits (cookies) to resemble dignitaries visiting her court. These were then offered as little gifts or tokens to those bearing the likeness.

By the 1600s the grated bread in the original recipes had been replaced by flour and the honey had been replaced by treacle. Originally, treacle was composed of honey and spices. As the sugar trade flourished, however, treacle as a by-product of sugar refining became easier and cheaper to obtain. In addition to flour and treacle, grated fruit began to be used.

With a Lebkuchen tradition dating back to 1395, Nürnberg (Nuremberg), Germany, became famous for its cakelike gingerbread cookies, which are usually sweetened with honey. The city became known as the gingerbread capital of the world, with regulations governing who was allowed to sell gingerbread and the ingredients and quality of the product. The city remains famous for its Lebkuchen and Christkindlesmarkt (Christmas market) today, producing an estimated 70 million cookies each year.

Gingerbread houses may have first appeared in Germany as early as the 1600s. However, their popularity increased after the Brothers Grimm published “Hansel and Gretel” in 1812, a fairy tale about two hungry children who happen upon a witch’s cottage “built of bread and covered with cakes” with windows “of clear sugar.” Elaborately decorated gingerbread houses are especially popular in modern-day Sweden and Poland, as well as North America.

By the 1700s gingerbread was firmly established and accessible in much of Europe. When Queen Victoria married Prince Albert of Germany in the mid-19th century, he brought his traditions to England, including gingerbread decorations hung on evergreen boughs for Christmas. This tradition quickly became popular there. Gingerbread was introduced to colonial America largely through English and German immigrants. In the early 1800s European immigrants brought their gingerbread recipes and traditions with them, ultimately helping to establish gingerbread houses and decorated gingerbread cookies as holiday staples in the United States. Instead of treacle, molasses is the primary sweetener in American gingerbread.

In the 21st century the art of gingerbread making exploded in popularity, as evidenced by such shows as Holiday Baking Championship (2014– ) and Holiday Gingerbread Showdown (2018–19). The National Gingerbread House Competition began in Asheville, North Carolina, in 1992. The second Saturday in December is now known as Gingerbread Decorating Day.