For centuries, gingerbread has been a symbol of the Christmas season in Europe and America. The scent of spices fills the house when honey cakes or gingerbread are baking. Then children decorate them with colored icings and plump raisins. Sometimes gingerbread houses, even whole villages, will be part of the Christmas festivities. They'll have white frosting on the rooftop with candies and icing around the doors and windows. But where did this tradition begin? Find out here!
Honey Cakes Have Long History
Particularly in Germany, honey cake, or lebkuchen, the forerunner of gingerbread, is favored during the holidays. These sweets have antecedents from pagan times when honey as a sweetener was believed to be a sacred food. The German tribes baked honey cakes to celebrate the winter solstice. These supposedly gave energy for the winter to those who ate them. Later when Christianity spread throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, some of the ancient customs became part of the religious Christmas traditions. Soon the monks in medieval monasteries began adding exotic Far Eastern spices to the honey cakes and perhaps came up with the first actual gingerbread.
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Lebkuchen Became an Art
As towns grew throughout Europe, bakers' guilds evolved, and turning out prize lebkuchen became an art. In the city of Nuremburg, some of the best lebkuchen was produced for centuries. Elaborate molds were made for shaping the ginger flavored cakes. These molds were made from tin, terra cotta, or carved from fruitwood. A great many intricate figures (religious subjects, animals, people, birds, soldiers) resulted as honey cake or gingerbread was made at Christmas.
Gradually, the figures became simpler and details were added with frosting instead of elaborate molds. Eventually, cookie cutters replaced the molds as these cakes were made in the home instead of predominately by bakers.
Molasses Used in America
In America, molasses often was the sweetening instead of honey. When Grimm wrote his "Hanzel and Gretel" fairy tale, gingerbread houses came into vogue. Gingerbread baking was especially prevalent in Pennsylvania where many Germans settled. There baking was important at holiday time and fancy ginger cookies resulted.
Special Cookie Cutters
Many housewives had their own set of tin cookie cutters fashioned by the itinerant tinsmith. She and her family made a great variety of cookies - hearts, people, birds, stars, moons, animals - for the Christmas holidays.
Sculptured gingerbread
If you want a variation from cutting cookies with a cutter, try this idea. Use your usual gingerbread cookie recipe. Form the cookies by rolling the dough into ropes between your hands. Then on a greased cookie sheet, place pinched off pieces of dough and press together to form cookies. You also can add pieces of rolled dough to cut-out cookies for decoration and give them a more molded effect. Bake sculptured cookies for about 350 degrees F. Don't let them brown so that they are overbaked.
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About the author: Mary Emma Allen is a cooking columnist, food historian and children's author. Visit her web site, or email her at me.allen@juno.com. © 2000 by Mary Emma Allen. Used with permission.
