20 Easy Gingerbread Cookie Recipes To Spice Up Your Holidays (2024)

FAQs

What are the three types of gingerbread? ›

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.

Lebkuchen (pronounced leyb-koo-kuh n) is a centuries-old German spiced treat traditionally baked during the winter holiday season. While lebkuchen is often translated to English as gingerbread, it's not exactly what most Americans envision when they think of gingerbread.

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.

Originally, the term gingerbread (from Latin zingiber via Old French gingebras) referred to preserved ginger. It then referred to a confection made with honey and spices. Gingerbread is often used to translate the French term pain d'épices ( lit.

According to Rhonda Massingham Hart's Making Gingerbread Houses, the first known recipe for gingerbread came from Greece in 2400 BC. Chinese recipes were developed during the 10th century and by the late Middle Ages, Europeans had their own version of gingerbread.

Gingerbread houses in Germany originated from bakers interpreting the description of a house from the story Hansel and Gretel. The story is about two siblings who encounter a witch living in a gingerbread, cake, and candy house. Bakers would apply and try to craft their versions of this house.

With Betty Crocker Gingerbread Cookie Mix, you can treat yourself to oven-fresh gingerbread cookies any time of the day or night. Prepare as described on the packaging or explore Betty Crocker recipes for a new take on this cookie classic that everyone will love.

Both are sweetened with a mixture of sugar and honey/syrup, flavoured with warm spices and often use the same technique to make the dough. The difference, as you may have guessed from the name, is the primary flavour. Whilst pure gingerbread uses only ground ginger, pfeffernüsse use a full quintet of spices.

What is the famous English gingerbread? ›

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.

What is that white papery thing on the bottom of the cookie? That is called an Oblaten - German for a paper thin wafer. They may look familiar to anyone who has taken Communion in a Lutheran or Catholic Church. It is absolutely edible.

Needing to be foiled, gingerbread loves whipped cream. But it also takes to tart winter fruits like a shortcake to strawberries. Poached or broiled pineapple sings alongside gingerbread, as do a few spoonfuls of pomelo curd, garnished with candied pomelo peel.

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.

Ginger pairs with nearly any type of fruit, especially in jams, pies, and fruit salads. Apples, oranges, figs, melon, pineapple, grapes, blueberries, bananas, apricots, and peaches work very well with this spice. Don't forget about pumpkin or sweet potato pies either.

1875 story

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.

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.

Gingerbread is often used to translate the French term pain d'épices (literally “spice bread”) or the German term Lebkuchen or Pfefferkuchen (pepperbread, literally: pepper cake).