Gingerbread Fudge Recipe - A New Christmas Classic (2024)

FAQs

What is the origin of gingerbread at Christmas? ›

Today, the ultimate Christmas gingerbread incarnation is of course the gingerbread house. It has been suggested that these edible structures originated in Germany between the 16th and 18th centuries. The trend for gingerbread houses must have spread to Britain at some point during the nineteenth century.

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.

Legend traces gingerbread men back to Queen Elizabeth I, who supposedly had her cooks mold the pastry into the shapes of her favorite courtiers and liked to give VIP guests ginger "biscuits" that were edible caricatures.

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. The pudgy gingerbread man with his candy eyes and icing smile has a sinister backstory—a link to death and the demonic.

Lebkuchen, a delectable German gingerbread, has a rich history steeped in tradition, dating back centuries. Originating in the medieval monasteries of Franconia, these spiced treats have evolved over time, becoming an integral part of German holiday festivities.

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.

According to Rhonda Massingham Hart's Making Gingerbread Houses, the first known recipe for gingerbread came from Greece in 2400 BC.

Nearly 93% of all American households serve and enjoy cookies as treats or after meals. However, it's the chocolate chip cookie that's the most popular in the U.S. and around the world.

History. Modern Christmas cookies can trace their history to recipes from Medieval Europe biscuits, when many modern ingredients such as cinnamon, ginger, black pepper, almonds and dried fruit were introduced into the west.

'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).

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.

A fear that gingerbread men could be the agents of the devil also spread throughout Europe. In 1607, the superstitious magistrates of Delft in the Netherlands made it illegal to either bake or eat any of these molded and spiced cookies. This was also a time of religious upheaval.

Gingerbread makes the perfect year round gift

They certainly make a lovely edible gift for family and friends as they can be decorated so individually and beautifully with icing, sweets and ribbons making them almost too good to eat.

So how did they become something to eat around the winter holidays? “The popularity of gingerbread during the holidays can, at least in part, be attributed to the belief that spices heated you up in the winter,” says Michael Krondl, author of Sweet Invention: A History of Dessert.

Moral Of The Story

The gingerbread man was very confident that he could run fast and escape from everyone. However, he was proved wrong when the sly fox caught him. Secondly, “we should never trust anyone blindly”. The gingerbread man believed the fox offered him and was not at all tempted to eat him.