Gingerbread has a thousand years of history behind it, and this quiz covers the lot in 50 free questions with answers: the monk said to have carried it to France in 992, the medieval guilds of Nuremberg, Toruń's 13th-century bakers, Elizabeth I's gingerbread men, and the Grimm fairy tale that gave us the gingerbread house. It also gets into the biscuits themselves and the traditions around them: Lebkuchen and Elisenlebkuchen, Swedish pepparkakor, Dutch speculaas and Biscoff, Grasmere gingerbread, molasses in America, Bergen's gingerbread town, the record-breaking houses, the Gingerbread Man's fox, Gingy from Shrek and Mother Ginger in The Nutcracker. It works as gingerbread house trivia for a Christmas party or a holiday classroom, with easy questions up front and hard ones for the bakers at the back. Every answer has been checked against a documented source and each question shows its citation and a short explanation after you answer.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Gingerbread is said to have reached Europe in 992 AD via a monk of what nationality?
Armenian
He settled in France and taught local Christians to bake it for seven years before his death.
Q 02Which four flavourings does the standard definition of gingerbread list alongside its sweetener?
Ginger, cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon
Nordic pepparkakor lean harder on cloves and cardamom, with ginger taking a back seat.
Q 03Originally, the word 'gingerbread' referred to what?
Preserved ginger
It came from Latin zingiber by way of Old French gingebras, and only later attached itself to the spiced cake.
Q 04In 1444, nuns at Vadstena Abbey in Sweden baked gingerbread for what purpose?
To ease indigestion
Ginger had a long reputation as a stomach settler, which is one reason the biscuit was first sold in pharmacies.
Q 05What was a piece of gingerbread bought at a medieval English fair for a sweetheart called?
A fairing
Fairs sold it in shapes stamped from wooden moulds, sometimes gilded, which is where the phrase 'the gilt off the gingerbread' comes from.
Q 06Where were gingerbread biscuits sold when their trade was first recorded in Tudor England?
Monasteries, pharmacies and markets
The pharmacies made sense: ginger was a medicine before it was a treat.
Q 07The gingerbread man is traditionally credited to the court of which English monarch?
Elizabeth I
The story goes that the figures were made to look like the visiting guests themselves.
Q 08Which Shropshire town became famous for its gingerbread, traditionally dunked in port wine?
Market Drayton
The town still bills itself as the home of gingerbread and holds an annual festival.
Q 09In the 15th century, who controlled the production of Lebkuchen in cities such as Nuremberg?
A guild
In Nuremberg only guild members could bake it, whereas in other towns women baked and sold it freely.
Q 10Toruń, famous for its gingerbread since the 13th century, is in which modern country?
Poland
When the trade began the town belonged to the Teutonic Order; it is also the birthplace of Copernicus.
Q 11Nürnberger Lebkuchen has been a protected designation since 1996; it must be made where?
Inside the city limits
Bakers were recorded in the city by 1395, and its Christmas market draws well over a million visitors a year.
Q 12Elisenlebkuchen, the finest grade of Nuremberg gingerbread, must contain at least what proportion of nuts?
A quarter
It also has to be under 10 percent wheat flour; good bakeries push the nut content nearer 40 percent.
Q 13Traditional Lebkuchen is baked on a thin base called an Oblate. What is it?
A wafer
Monks borrowed the idea from communion wafers to stop the sticky dough welding itself to the tray.
Q 21The hard white icing used to pipe snow on gingerbread roofs is made from icing sugar and what?
Beaten egg whites
Despite the legend, the name does not come from Queen Victoria's wedding cake; the term was in print by 1770.
Q 22Which Norwegian city has built a whole gingerbread town, Pepperkakebyen, every Christmas since 1991?
Bergen
It is claimed as the world's largest gingerbread city, with schools and families each contributing a building.
Q 23In 2013 a group in Bryan, Texas, set a Guinness record with a gingerbread house of what floor area?
2,520 square feet
It took 7,200 eggs and 1,800 pounds of butter, and its calorie count topped 35 million; a Home Alone-themed house has since beaten it.
Q 14Besides its Lebkuchen, Nuremberg is famous for a sausage that is what?
Shorter and thinner than most
Both are Christmas market staples alongside mulled wine.
Q 15Lebkuchen is the soft form of the national gingerbread; the harder form is associated with what?
Carnivals and Christmas markets
The hard version is what gets shaped into hearts, iced with messages and hung around necks at fairs.
Q 16The tradition of building decorated gingerbread houses began in the early 1800s in which country?
Germany
Germans call one a Lebkuchenhaus or Pfefferkuchenhaus, and royal icing is the usual mortar.
Q 17Some researchers link the first gingerbread houses to which 1812 Brothers Grimm fairy tale?
Hansel and Gretel
In the Grimms' text the witch's house is made of bread, cake and sugar; the gingerbread came later, helped by Humperdinck's 1893 opera.
Q 18In the original Grimm version of the tale, what is the witch's house in the forest made of?
Bread, cake and sugar
The tale was published in 1812; the witch plans to fatten Hansel up before eating him.
Q 19Whose 1893 opera Hänsel und Gretel helped fix the gingerbread house in the popular imagination?
Engelbert Humperdinck
Wagner's influence is all over the score, which is unsurprising: Humperdinck had assisted him at Bayreuth.
Q 20What is usually used as the glue that holds a gingerbread house together?
Royal icing
It sets rock hard; the classic recipe is beaten egg white and icing sugar with a squeeze of lemon.
Q 24New York hotel chef Jon Lovitch's record-largest gingerbread village has how many buildings?
157
That is 135 houses and 22 commercial buildings, plus cable cars and a train, all edible.
Q 25The fairy tale of the Gingerbread Man first appeared in print in 1875 in which American periodical?
St. Nicholas Magazine
Under the title The Gingerbread Boy; the runaway-food plot also exists as Norway's Pannekaken and Russia's Kolobok.
Q 26Which animal finally catches and eats the Gingerbread Man in the fairy tale?
A fox
He counts down as he is devoured: quarter gone, half gone, three-quarters gone, all gone.
Q 27In the film Shrek, which villain kidnaps and tortures Gingy the Gingerbread Man for information?
Lord Farquaad
Gingy, voiced by Conrad Vernon, refuses to give up Shrek's location and later gains a giant brother, Mongo.
Q 28In the Shrek films, who is described as the creator and 'father' of Gingy and his giant brother Mongo?
The Muffin Man
All three characters are voiced by Conrad Vernon, one of the film's own story artists.
Q 29Which poet wrote in 1803 that she and her brother William craved Grasmere gingerbread?
Dorothy Wordsworth
The Lake District village's version, a cross between biscuit and cake, is made to a secret recipe popularised by Sarah Nelson.
Q 30Grasmere gingerbread is made to a secret recipe popularised by which 19th-century woman?
Sarah Nelson
She lived from 1815 to 1904 and sold it from a tiny cottage by the churchyard that is still the shop today.