The Gingerbread House, a Christmas Tradition

There are few things more synonymous with Christmas than the gingerbread house. But did you know this tradition got its start from a famous fairytale?

First cultivated in China some 5,000 years ago, ginger root was thought to have been initially used for medicinal purposes. Later it was used to season and preserve breads. It was also used to mask the smell and taste of cured meats. From the Middle East, one legend has it that in 992 the Armenian monk and saint, Gregory of Nicopolis (Gregory Makar), brought gingerbread to the northern French of Pithiviers where for seven years he taught baking ginger flavored breadstuffs to other priests and Christian bakers.

Gingerbread as we know it today began appearing in Europe during the 15th century. This was especially true in France, England, and Germany. And by the late 1400s bakers had begun shaping gingerbread into all sorts of figurines such as hearts, stars, animals, and religious items which were sold in shops and markets. In fact, gingerbread figurines and trinkets were so popular that gingerbread fairs were organized for the express purpose of sampling the popular confections.

It is believed that in the 16th century Queen Elizabeth was the first to have gingerbread man cookies made in the likeness of visiting dignitaries to which she presented them as parting gifts.

In the early 19th century Germany, well decorated gingerbread houses became popular following the 1812 publication of the Brothers Grimm fairytale Hansel and Gretel. And while their popularity didn’t catch on in Britain, gingerbread houses were well received in the rest of Europe, a Christmas tradition that was brought to America by the Pennsylvanian German immigrants.

Today making gingerbread houses in America remains extremely popular, not only as a traditional holiday family activity but commercially, as well as rival stores, hotels, schools, and civic organizations compete to see who can construct the largest and most elaborate.

On November 30, 2013, the Traditions Club in the small town of Bryan, Texas set a new world’s record for the largest gingerbread house in order to raise funds for a new hospital trauma center. It took 7,200 pounds of flour, 2,925 pounds of brown sugar, 68 pounds of ground ginger, 1,800 pounds of butter, and 7,200 eggs to build the 2,520 square foot house.

In 2017, sous chef Jon Lovitch of the New York Marriott Marquis hotel set the world’s record for the largest gingerbread village for the fourth year. The editable town had 135 houses and 22 commercial buildings, complete with gingerbread people, cars, and even a train.

Interested in making your own gingerbread house? Wilton, America’s largest baking products company, makes gingerbread house kits available at retail department, hobby and crafts stores nationwide. For those of you with a bit more skill in the baking arena, recipes and templates are available on a number of online web sites including my favorite shown below.

How You Make Em: https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/gingerbread-house

NOTE: Brothers Grimm were actually two brothers; Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm. The were German academics, philologists, cultural researchers, and authors who together collected and published folklore. They popularized traditional oral tales such as Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, to name just a few of their more than 200 stories.

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A St. Louis Original: Ooey-Gooey Butter Cake.

A few weeks back, I was watching Martha Stewart Bakes during which she made something I had never heard of in my forty-plus years as a chef–a Gooey Butter Cake.

gooey-butter-cakeIt seems this cake was invented during the Great Depression in the 1930s by a German-style bakery located on the St. Louis South Side. And like a number of foods we enjoy today, the gooey butter cake came about quite by accident. While making a batch of standard coffee cake, the baker transposed the ratio of flour to butter, or maybe it was butter to sugar, but whichever it was resulted in a gooey, sticky mess. And times dictated the bakery try to sell the resulting mistake rather than let the product go to waste.

Oddly enough the new cake sold so well that the bakery continued making them. Soon other St. Louis bakers began producing their own versions of gooey butter cake, and what began as one baker’s accident became area icon.

As with most new foods that become popular, multiple claims of its origin begin to appear. The gooey butter cake is no exception. Two groups in particular lay claim to this iconic dish: the Danzer family and the Koppe family.

According to Richard Danzer, one Saturday morning in late 1942 or early 1943, St. Louis baker Johnny Hoffman messed up one of his recipes. Upon discovering the results were surprisingly tasty, he called his friend and fellow baker Herman Danzer, Richard’s father, and told him what had happened. The two bakers spent the rest of the day at Danzer’s shop trying to recreate Hoffman’s blunder. Just as they were finishing their final and successful effort, Melba Danzer came in to see what the two friends were up to. Upon tasting their creation, she exclaimed “this sure is gooey” and thus the name.

Herman Danzer died in 1997. Unfortunately, neither his son, Richard, nor his wife, Melba, had retained any of his recipes and therefore have no way of proving the accuracy of the story.

paula-deens-gooey-butter-cakeAnd then there is the Koppe side of the story as told by the daughter of Master Baker John Koppe who owned a bakery throughout the 1940s during WWII. It was during these years that John was to have developed the gooey butter cake. Following the war, Koppe sold his business and went to work for St. Louis Pastry Shop, giving them his recipe for this classic St. Louis specialty.

Again, there is no concrete evidence that shows John Koppe to be gooey butter cake’s inventor. Also, I find it intriguing that he gave his recipe to the same bakery owned by Johnny Hoffman.

If these two claims were not confusing enough, there is the distinct possibility that this St. Louis treat was actually created in Philadelphia. It seems that the Philadelphia Butter Cakes have been sold by the area’s German bakeries since the 1930s, although I find nothing to suggest that any particular bakery there makes claim to its origin.

There are two things upon which everyone seems to agree. The original gooey butter cake had a sweet yeast dough base with a topping made from corn syrup, sugar, vanilla, and of course butter. It was certainly not the modern version made today by some using cake mix base with a cream cheese topping. And while gooey butter cake is a type of coffee cake rather than a dessert cake, it can definitely be eaten at any time of the day.

Today you can find the gooey butter cake in bakeries all over the St. Louis area. There are also versions available nationwide, including a variety called the Paula Deen Baked Goods Original Gooey Butter Cake sold in Walmart stores throughout the country.
Another bakery, Ann & Allen Baking Company, sells a whopping 76 varieties of gooey butter cake marketed online in all 50 states. The company’s original version even won top prize in Food Network’s Food Feuds.

There seems to be a revival today of classic Americana sweets, and the gooey butter cake is just one example. I’ve added instructions for both the original and modern versions of this delicious yet unusual treat to the Recipe Index of this website for your convenience. I hope you’ll try baking one soon, and let your family find out what folks in St. Louis have known for more than eighty years–regardless of who the originator was, the Ooey-Gooey Butter Cake is one mistake worth making.

Make Em: Killeen’s St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake, Paula Deen’s Gooey Butter Cake