Gingerbread Cookies (Gingerbread Family) Recipe - The Cookie Rookie® (2024)

FAQs

What was the first recipe for gingerbread cookies? ›

The earliest mention of the gingerbread recipe was in 2400 BC in Greece, as per Rhonda Massingham Hart, author of 'Making Gingerbread Houses'. And the earliest recipe included stale breadcrumbs, ground almonds, sugar, rosewater, and, of course - ginger.

​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.

Queen Elizabeth I hired her own gingerbread baker to feed her craving for the sweet. She commanded the baker to make gingerbread men in the likenesses of visiting dignitaries and her suitors.

Gingerbread takes shape

After creating a paste of breadcrumbs, honey, and ginger, and rolling the mixture out, the monks often carved biblical scenes or images of saints before baking it. They then used these gingerbread treats as a way to feed the hungry and offer some religious teaching at the same time.

Nuremberg was recognized as the "Gingerbread Capital of the World" when in the 1600s the guild started to employ master bakers and skilled workers to create complicated works of art from gingerbread. Medieval bakers used carved boards to create elaborate designs.

Fear that gingerbread men could be agents of the occult spread to the continent and in 1607 the magistrates of Delft in the Netherlands made it illegal to either bake or eat the biscuits.

Gingerbread was first brought to Europe in 992 CE by the Armenian monk Gregory of Nicopolis when he taught French Christians the art of gingerbread baking. Later, during the 13th century, gingerbread was brought to Sweden by German immigrants.

In Germany gingerbread is made in two forms: a soft form called Lebkuchen and a harder form, particularly associated with carnivals and street markets such as the Christmas markets that occur in many German towns.

These gingerbread hearts were important status symbols, as lavish use of spices signified affluence and prestige amongst wealthy Romans. Later, when the Empire dissolved in decadence, so did all historic traces of gingerbread.

Who was the boy who ate a gingerbread house? ›

The Watch What Happens Live host, 55, shared the conversation between him and son Ben after Cohen woke up and discovered the 4½-year-old eating a gingerbread house their family was gifted by Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos. "Ben, I don't like coming downstairs and finding you with the gingerbread house in your mouth.

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.

Gingerbread was brought to Europe in 992 by an Armenian monk. Through the 17th century, gingerbread was used for religious ceremonies. In the late 17th century, gingerbread became associated with Christmas. Russian bakers prepared gingerbread men and women, usually as replicas of those people attending parties.

The Gingerbread man is one of England's most frequently used Christmas decorations. Its creation is attributed to Queen Elizabeth !, who is thought to have served the gingerbread figurines to visiting dignitaries. Lebkuchen, the German gingerbread, is likely to be the oldest Christmas gingerbread cookie.

A serving of gingersnaps or gingerbread cookies provides roughly 1.8 milligrams of niacin -- 13 and 11 percent of the daily niacin intakes recommended for women and men, respectively. Both types of ginger cookies also contain folate, which is a vitamin needed for red blood cell production and healthy cell growth.

According to certain researchers, the first gingerbread houses were the result of the well-known Grimm's fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel" in which the two children abandoned in the forest found an edible house made of bread with sugar decorations.

The first cookies are thought to date back as early as the 7th Century A.D. in present-day Iran. That's around the time that sugar became a common baking ingredient in the region.

Lebkuchen has ancient roots in the honey cake (Honigkuchen) baked by Egyptians thousands of years ago as a gift to the gods. However, lebkuchen as we know it today was first created by Franconian monks in the 13th century, in the region now known as Bavaria.

When its usefulness as a preservative was discovered is unclear, but some food historians say that the first known recipe for gingerbread dates from around 2400 BC in Greece. Others trace its history to 992 AD, when Armenian monk Gregory of Nicopolis is thought to have taught Christian bakers in France how to make it.