Types of gingerbread | Original St. Wolfganger Gingerbread (2024)

FAQs

What are the three types of gingerbread? ›

Should gingerbread cookies be hard or soft? Soft gingerbread biscuits are ideal. They ought to be flexible. However, they should still be somewhat elastic, and if you hold them too firmly because you're so excited to eat them, you might even be able to leave your fingerprints on the cookie!

Food historians trace the origins of gingerbread back to the ancient Egyptians, who used it for ceremonial purposes. The ancient Greeks followed suit with the first known recipe for gingerbread around 2400 B.C.

Gingerbread was an important part of pagan religious ceremonies which took place in the month of December. Before this time, since the Christian Church had never set a date for the birth of Christ, the decision was made to set it at December 25th so pagan and Christmas celebrations could take place at the same time.

Victorian cook Sarah Nelson invented Grasmere Gingerbread® in 1854 in the English Lake District village from where it gets its name. A unique, spicy-sweet cross between a biscuit and cake, its reputation quickly spread and it is now enjoyed by food lovers all over the world.

gingerbread, in architecture and design, elaborately detailed embellishment, either lavish or superfluous. Although the term is occasionally applied to highly detailed and decorative styles, it is more often applied specifically to the work of American designers of the late 1860s and '70s.

“There are some gingerbread recipes that are hard right after baking and need to sit for a few days to soften. Molasses and honey hardens gingerbread, but as the sugar absorbs moisture, it will get softer.”

Originally, the term gingerbread referred to preserved ginger. It later referred to a confection made with honey and spices. Nowadays, gingerbread refers to a wider variety of baked goods, ranging from a soft, moist loaf cake to a particularly crunchy ginger biscuit.

The general rule of thumb is a couple of weeks. It depends how its prepared and if you used a lot of icing. Also, gingerbread like any other bread turns stale quite fast. Eating it after 1–2 week with tea shouldn't be a problem.

​Superstitions about gingerbread flourished in the 17th century. Witches supposedly made gingerbread figures, ate them, and thereby caused the death of their enemies. Dutch magistrates went so far as to declare baking or eating molded cookies illegal.

What is the fairy tale about gingerbread? ›

In the 1875 St. Nicholas tale, a childless old woman bakes a gingerbread man, who leaps from her oven and runs away. The woman and her husband give chase, but are unable to catch him. The gingerbread man then outruns several farm workers, farm men, and farm animals.

Originally gingerbread was made with honey and breadcrumbs

One of the earliest English recipes for gingerbread, written down in the fifteenth century, didn't actually contain any ginger! Instead bread crumbs or 'gratyd brede' were mixed with boiled honey and formed into a stiff paste with saffron and pepper.

Long before it became a holiday treat, gingerbread was a royal favorite, a token of fertility, and a tool for witches to exact their vengeance.

History. Gingerbread is claimed to have been brought to Europe in 992 AD by the Armenian monk Gregory of Nicopolis (also called Gregory Makar and Grégoire de Nicopolis). He left Nicopolis (in modern-day western Greece) to live in Bondaroy (north-central France), near the town of Pithiviers.

What's the Moral? The gingerbread man story's moral is slightly dark for a fable meant for children: Be careful who you trust. The cookie believed the fox when he said he wasn't tempted to eat him—this misguided trust led to the protagonist's downfall.

The American version first appeared in the May 1875 issue of St. Nicholas Magazine. The story tells of a Gingerbread Man who runs away from the old woman who baked him. He is chased by several people and animals.

'spice bread') or the German and Polish terms Pfefferkuchen and Piernik respectively ( lit. 'pepper cake' because it used to contain pepper) or Lebkuchen (of unclear etymology; either Latin libum, meaning "sacrifice" or "sacrificial bread," or German Laib for loaf or German for life, leben).

The general term of gingerbread is used to describe the broad category of baked goods which are flavoured with the spice blend of ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, cardamom, anise and molasses/honey.