blog
Christmas Gingerbread House USA About Us
Call 24/7 866-396-8429
Blog Christmas Gingerbread house
It wouldn’t be the holiday season without the smell of fresh gingerbread house baking. These high-end hotels take the traditional cookie to a new level, offering up oversized gingerbread men, creative contests, festive villages and much, much more for you to enjoy this month
For many families, the tradition of decorating a gingerbread house is an annual holiday event. Little do they know that they are participating in a tradition that is centuries old.
Though the English are credited with being the first to bake and sell gingerbread when they introduced the Gingerbread Man, they weren’t the first people in Europe to bake this unique treat. In fact, it was an Armenian Monk who is actually credited for bringing gingerbread houses to Europe back in the 10th century. He taught the skill of baking the treat to both Christians and French priests.
Gingerbread was prominent with other religious institutions across Europe such as the Swedish Nuns. It is widely known that monasteries were one of the first places to sell gingerbread. In the 16th century, gingerbread was also available for purchase in farmers’ markets and pharmacies. It wasn’t until gingerbread found its way to Britain that it started being painted. It was displayed in shop windows and became the popular holiday treat we now know today.
Though decorating gingerbread cookies had become a growing trend, the popular activity of decorating gingerbread house didn’t take hold until the publishing of Hansel and Gretel by the Brothers Grimm. This well-known German tale also resulted in German settlers bringing gingerbread to America, where it continues to be popular today.
Creating gingerbread houses started at Wilton decades ago, and continues each year with the introduction of new designs. How many houses do we make? In 2011, we made over 2,000,000 gingerbread houses.