Do you have bad digestion? Problems with your stomach? Eat a gingerbread cookie. That’s what Swedes did during the 15th century, but it was only after Hansel and Gretel the gingerbread became a house.
The origin of the first gingerbread is a little unclear, but we know that it came to Europe about 1100 years ago with an Armenian monk. He introduced the cookie to the French cuisine in the monastery, and after that it spread all over Europe with different monastic orders.
Sweden, as usual many years after the rest of Europe, got the gingerbread in the 13th century from German immigrants. The earliest documentation of the gingerbread is from Vadstena monastery. The nuns in the monastery used to bake gingerbread as a cure for different problems with the stomach. It only took a couple of hundred years, and then the gingerbread was pharmacists, monks and squares sellers best selling item.
But the big question is: why did we start building houses? The answer is easier than many believe. It were the Brothers Grimm, who with their story of Hansel and Gretel got Germany completely into building gingerbread houses. In the beginning it was only the wicked witch’s house that was build. But nowadays, it doesn’t matter what you build, only your imagination is the limit.
Do you want to bake Swedish gingerbread? Or perhaps build a house? Use this recipe:
1,5 deciliter water (0,6 cups)
4 deciliter sugar (1,7 cups)
300 grams butter
1 deciliter syrup (0,4 cups)
1 tablespoon ground cloves
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground ginger
12 deciliter flour (5 cups)
2 teaspoons baking powder
Do like this:
Mix the baking powder with half of the flour.
Boil the water and sugar. When the sugar has dissolved in the water, add syrup, butter and the spices. Let the sugar mix cool before you put in the flour/baking powder in the sugar mix.
Put the dough on the table and knead the rest of the flour in the dough.
Put the dough in a bowl and sprinkle with flower. Put a kitchen towel over the dough and let it rest in a cool place during the night.
Preheat the oven to 225 degrees Celsius; the cookies will need 5-6 minutes in the oven.
Roll the dough to a flat layer of about 0,5 cm and press out the different kinds of shapes.
Bake for 5 to 6 minutes at 225 degrees. Lift of the gingerbread from the plate as soon as it comes out of the oven, preferably with a spatula. Let the cookies cool on a rack and store in a tin at room temperature.
Eat it.
