There is also a Vintage Christmas Recipes feature HERE.
Gingerbread today is quite different from what it used to be.
Once upon a time, “gingerbread” simply meant preserved ginger.
By the fifteenth century it was a “cake” made from a dense dough
of breadcrumbs or ground almonds mixed with honey or spices.
Often this dough was pressed into moulds with very intricate
designs. There were many varieties of gingerbread in medieval
times: ‘coarse’, ‘fine’, white, red (coloured with red wine or
sandalwood), and gilded (with real gold). Here is a small sample
of recipes from over the centuries, to give you an idea of the
development into gingerbread as we know it now. If you are not
familiar with reading very old recipes, be patient! The language
gets easier as you go along, although old recipes are rarely as
easy to understand as we expect nowadays. There are some
wonderful pictures of old Gingerbread moulds HERE and HERE. Take
a quart of honey and sethe it and skime it clene; take Safroun,
pouder Pepir and throw th