Classic Home Desserts by Richard Sax

Author:Richard Sax [Sax, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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About Gingerbread

They sette him Roial spicerye And Gingebread.

GEOFFREY CHAUCER,

SIR THOPAS, 1386

The history of gingerbread can be traced farther back than any other baked item except bread. German lebkuchen, a form of gingerbread originally made in monasteries, was first mentioned in print in 1320 and was spiced with honey, ginger and ground black pepper. Later, guilds were formed specifically for bakers of the various forms of lebkuchen.

Pepper was often included with the “warm spices” in medieval recipes, but the “pepper” in cookie names like German pfeffernüsse and the Swedish gingersnaps called pepperkakor refers to overall spiciness, and black pepper is not included as an ingredient.

Historian Karen Hess, whose wide-ranging and insightful research on gingerbread is included in the notes to Martha Washington’s Booke of Cookery, which was compiled between 1749 and 1799, points out that medieval gingerbread comes from the field of medicine, not cookery. Cited in the Oxford English Dictionary, the word Gingebrar, from an English manuscript dated 1299, refers to preserved ginger, probably used as a digestive aid. But by the time Chaucer used the word in the late-14th century, it frequently indicated the edible cake.

Made with bread crumbs and honey, and later with treacle and molasses, gingerbread began to rise in popularity in England early in the 17th century. The French version, pain d'épices (“spice bread”), a centuries-old specialty of Dijon, is attributed to Chinese origins. Mrs. Hess hypothesizes that the Chinese were eating a spiced honey bread called Mi-Kong by the 10th century. It was said to be included among the rations for the followers of Genghis Khan. “The Arabs adopted it,” Mrs. Hess continues, “and inevitably it came to Europe by way of the Crusaders.”

Recipes recognizable to us as gingerbread appear in the 17th century, but the butter and eggs with which older, more bread-like gingerbreads were enriched don’t show up in English recipe collections until the 18 th century. By the time Amelia Simmons published her American Cookery in 1796, gingerbread was popular enough in this country to be included in some five different versions.

Early American gingerbreads took two basic forms:

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