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Gingerbread
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- For other uses of the word "gingerbread", see Gingerbread (disambiguation)
Gingerbread is a sweet that can take the form of a cake or a cookie in which the predominant flavor is ginger.
As a cookie, gingerbread can be made into a thin, crisp cookie (often called a ginger snap) or a softer cookie similar to the German Lebkuchen. Gingerbread cookies are often cut into shapes, particularly gingerbread men. Market Drayton in Shropshire, England, claims to be the place where gingerbread was invented[citation needed]. Traditionally it was dunked in port. The first recorded mention of gingerbread being baked in the town dates back to 1793; however, it was probably made earlier as ginger was stocked in high street businesses from the 1640s.
A variant dough is used to build gingerbread houses à la the "witch's house" encountered by Hansel and Gretel. These houses, covered with a variety of candies and icing, are popular Christmas decorations, typically built by children with the help of their parents.
Another variant uses a boiled dough that can be molded like clay to form inedible statuettes or other decorations. A significant form of popular art in Europe,[citation needed] major centers of gingerbread mould carving included Lyon, Nürnberg, Pest, Prague, Pardubice, Pulsnitz, Ulm, and Toruń. Gingerbread moulds often displayed the "news", showing carved portraits of new kings, emperors, and queens, for example.[citation needed] Substantial mould collections are held at the Ethnographic Museum in Toruń, Poland and the Bread Museum in Ulm, Germany.
The cake form tends to be a dense, treaclely (molasses-based) spice cake. Some recipes add mustard, pepper, raisins, nuts, and/or other spices/ingredients to the batter. In one variation, the cake omits raisins or nuts and is served with warm lemon sauce. In the United States, the cake is more often served in the winter, particularly at Christmastime.
Originally, the term gingerbread (from Latin zingiber via Old French gingebras) referred to preserved ginger, then to a confection made with honey and spices.
Gingerbread is often translated into French as pain d'épices (literally bread of spices). Pain d'épices is a French pastry also made with honey and spices, but not crispy.
