December 9#: Gingerbread Decorating Day

4 min read

“Run, run, run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me, I’m the gingerbread man!”

Spice up your baking skill and create edible masterpieces with gingerbread cookies, icing and every kind of delicious decorations!
It’s getting closer to the time to prepare for Christmas, and one of several traditions is also the baking of gingerbread.
Gingerbread Decorating Day is here for all kids, from ages 1 to 99 and, of course, you don’t have to create a gingerbread house on this date, as you may want to make gingerbread in the shape of Santa or a reindeer, o a classic gingerbread man, and decorate these.
After all, does anything give you more of a festive feeling than the smell of freshly baked gingerbread?

However, lot of people do not realize that gingerbread has a pretty interesting history.
Actually, back in the 17th century, baking gingerbread was deemed a specific profession and you could only make it if you were a professional gingerbread baker, unless it was Easter or Christmas when the rest of the population could partake in the task!
In Europe, gingerbread was even considered a form of popular art.
And somehow still today.
Have you seen some of those incredible gingerbread houses around?
However, it was a pretty big deal back in the day, as molds of gingerbread were used to display actual happenings through the portrayal of new rulers, as well as their parties, spouses, and even their children!
There are museums around the world that house substantial mold collections, and two of the most popular are the Bread Museum in Ulm, Germany and the Ethnographic Museum in Toruń, Poland.

Either way gingerbread is though to have been brought to Europe by an Armenian monk named Gregory of Nicopolis in the 10th century who had brought the necessary spices back from the Middle East, and then taught the art of gingerbread making, what with the spices and the molasses, to French Christians until his death.
As a result his creation made its way around Europe: in the 13th century, it made its way to Sweden, where it was baked by nuns to help soothe indigestion.
There, it slowly became popular to paint the cookies and use them as window decorations as well.
The 13th century also saw it make its debut in the city of Toruń in Poland, where the honey supplied by the local villages made the cookies especially delicious. To this day “Pierniki Toruńskie”, as they are known in Poland, is an icon of Poland’s national cuisine.
From the 17th century onwards, gingerbread was sold in monasteries and pharmacies in England, where it was thought to have medicinal properties, and gingerbread became also the symbol of the town of Market Drayton, which was particularly known for it.
In the play, “Love’s Labour’s Lost”, Shakespeare himself wrote, “And I had but one penny in the world, thou should’ st have it to buy gingerbread.”
It was in 1875, when the gingerbread man was first introduced to holiday traditions through a fairytale published in St. Nicholas magazine, where he was depicted as a holiday treat that was eventually eaten by a hungry fox!

Needless to say, the best way to celebrate Gingerbread Decorating Day is to make your very own gingerbread cookies and then proceed to decorate (and eat) them.
Gingerbread can be decorated with many different things, from a simple icing made from just water and icing sugar to more creative icings, like lemon or a delicious buttercream icing.
Gingerbread men can also be made into cookie sandwiches, with delicious fillings made with vanilla or lemon cream, Nutella, or even ice cream!
If you’re feeling particularly ambitious, you could decide to make a gingerbread house, that they can be decorated with virtually anything, like gumdrops, candy canes, or peppermints, among others….