English Heritage

What is gingerbread?

This may seem like an obvious question. After all, ginger biscuit people are a familiar sight in supermarkets and coffee shops around the country. However, one of the earliest English recipes for gingerbread (written in the fifteenth century) contains no ginger at all.

Another key difference from modern day gingerbread is that the medieval variety was made with honey and breadcrumbs. These were mixed with saffron and pepper to form a stiff paste, which was formed into a square, sprinkled with cinnamon, and decorated with box leaves secured with cloves. Sometimes it was also coloured red by adding sanders, the finely ground bark of the red sandalwood tree. Later recipes even include liquorice and red wine.

The cure for a venomous bite

By the 17th century gingerbread looked more familiar.  The breadcrumbs were replaced by wheat flour and honey would gradually be phased out when an alternative sweetener became widely available.

More and more sugar was grown, refined and imported into Europe during the 17th and 18th centuries, and it became cheaper too. (These low prices had a high human cost – they were largely because of the expansion of Caribbean plantations, and the exploitation of the enslaved Africans forced to work on them.)

One by-product of the sugar-refining process was a thick, dark, bittersweet liquid. The name ‘triacle’ or ‘theriaca’ was originally given to a honey-infused medicine for venomous bites and poisons. But this new cheap product began to replace the honey, and it became known as ‘common treacle’. Eventually, so much treacle was being produced that cooks found tasty non-medical uses for it – and it found its way into gingerbread.

A very merry gingerbread

Given gingerbread’s connection to festive occasions like fairs it is perhaps not surprising that it should eventually become associated with Christmas. The future Queen Victoria even gave her beloved King Charles Spaniel, Dash, ‘two bits of gingerbread surrounded with branches of holly and candles’ for Christmas in 1833. Later during Queen Victoria’s reign, her husband, Prince Albert, would dress up as Saint Nicholas and give his children gingerbread and apples for being good during the year.

Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker has frequently featured as Christmas entertainment since it was composed in 1892. The tale is loosely based on the E.T.A. Hoffmann fantasy story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. It features a girl who makes friends with a nutcracker that comes to life on Christmas Eve. Together with some gingerbread soldiers, the Nutcracker wages a battle against the evil Mouse King and his army.

Make your own gingerbread treats

Now you've discovered the story of gingerbread, why not have a go at making your own, with Sam's easy-to-follow recipe. 

Sam says,

This dough is ideal for making gingerbread men or animals. If you want to turn them into Christmas tree decorations, use a skewer to pierce a hole in the top of your shape before you bake the biscuits. It may close a little while it is baking so remake the hole again when the biscuits come out of the oven, while they are still soft (they will firm up as they cool).