Gingerbread has been made in many forms since ginger was first brought to the British Isles by soldiers returning from the Crusades in the early 12th Century.
In early times, when ginger was an expensive imported product, only the very rich could afford. Early gingerbread was made using honey, flour and spices (including ginger), this resembled a hard biscuit when baked. This was often presented in very ornate shapes and decorated to resemble tooled leather and then gilded to show off the wealth of the person serving the gingerbread to their guests. Today, although still known as gingerbread, it can be found in many forms: some being hard like a biscuit (cookie) and other forms of gingerbread which have a softer cake like texture.
In northern Britain oatmeal was often used in place of flour, as can be found in Yorkshire Parkin and Grasmere Gingerbread. These are very different in both texture and taste, the Yorkshire Parkin being very soft and moist (a good Parkin sinks in the middle) and the Grasmere Gingerbread being more like a Scottish shortbread.
In eastern Britain Grantham in Lincolnshire became known for its crunchy puffed up gingerbread biscuits (sometimes known as white gingerbread as they contain no treacle and are therefore much paler in colour).
It is not known when Gingerbread Men arrived in Britain but they were being made and sold by bakers in Market Drayton in Shropshire in the 1790’s. The earliest gingerbread men were probably crudely shaped from rolls of dough to resemble humans. Decorations such as eyes and buttons made of currants being later additions. In the early 1800’s a biscuit cutter was invented that gives us the shape we recognise now as the traditional gingerbread man. Today gingerbread cutters come in many shapes including whole families and some cutters are even available with ‘bites’ missing from the gingerbread man.
Here we tend to be more traditional and can offer you a 1:12th scale gingerbread man cutter, recipe book, baking trays and mixing bowls for your dolls house.