The story of gingerbread men

"And I had but one penny in the world, thou should'st have it to buy gingerbread."

-- William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost

Ahhh the humble gingerbread man, crisp, spicy and wholesomely charming biscuits. We can't help thinking of those childhood moments where biting his head off and saving the buttons until last were so amusing!

The history of gingerbread men harks back to Egyptian times, where a spiced bread was used for ceremonial purposes.

In the 11th Century, when spices started to become more affordable, Gingerbread started to gain popularity in Europe, where cooks of wealthy households experimented with different wooden moulds in order to create different shaped sweet breads.

At this time the recipe was nothing like today's and used stale breadcrumbs, ground almonds, rose water and ginger, naturally. They would use the moulded aromatic bread to tell local news stories, announce new kings or emperors and would use gold leaf to decorate particular features.

The first gingerbread men are said to have been created as culinary entertainment for Queen Elizabeth I. They were moulded into the image of her favourite suitors and courtiers, decorated with gold leaf, added to place settings then devoured at royal feasts. It was the English who adapted the recipe to replace breadcrumbs with flour and add egg and sugar to make the overall dough lighter (and more delicious).
By the early 17th Century gingerbread men were sold at many county fairs, said be a lucky love token if given to your sweetheart. In the North of England, on Halloween, it was traditional for maidens to eat 'gingerbread husbands' in the hope that they could bag a real hubby!

Gingerbread men were, however, soon taken up by witches, who used them like voodoo dolls. They would bake effigies of their enemies and eat them. 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.

Now the law has been lifted, the smell of sweet and sticky gingerbread can perfume your house to your heart's content, so why not try our Gingerbread man recipe. What personality will you make?! Haven't got time to create your own? Why not check out our Jolly Ginger family, where we have a ginger (we're talking about biscuits here) for every occasion.