This aromatic delicacy has a long history and the national product status in many European countries. Gingerbread production was also established in Belarus — mainly in cities and towns. Gingerbread cookies were backed in Orsha, Kopys, Dubrovno, Minsk, and the gingerbread cookies from Mir in the shape of soldiers were sought after at fairs. The best flour, honey and, of course, spices, such as cinnamon, ginger, cloves, lemon and orange zest, were used for the production of the gingerbread cookies. After baking, the gingerbread cookies of various shapes were glazed, decorated with colored cream and food colourants. They often turned out to be so beautiful that it was a pity to eat them. It is not for nothing that gingerbread cookies production is considered a folk artistic craft.
The most ancient method of forming gingerbread cookies is printing. To get a figured pattern on a delicacy, they used a special wooden form, where a necessary figure was cut out in the counter-relief technique. One can make an original gingerbread cookie in this way from a prefabricated dough at the Museum of Torun Gingerbread in Poland - the cookies are baked while visitors explore the exhibition. At the end of the tour, everyone gets a gift prepared by themselves, which, unfortunately, can only be used as a souvenir. Edible Torun gingerbread cookies are sold in every store in the city. In the early twentieth century, bakers began to use new techniques for making gingerbread cookies - a figure was cut out with sharp-edged tin stamps on a flat rolled piece of dough. The ready gingerbread cookies were decorated. Gingerbread cookies were also formed by hand, but this process was quite slow and time-consuming.
The Belarusian gingerbread industry declined in the mid-twentieth century. Now with the emergence of private gingerbread workshops, gingerbread is beginning to revive. "Pernik.by" project produces delicious and beautiful gingerbread from natural ingredients for any occasion and to fit every taste. To taste the fragrant gingerbread cookies and zephyr, you should visit "Zhorny" bakery, whose owners preserve and develop the Belarusian culinary tradition. Gingerbread cookies are made by hand there. On a mass scale, gingerbread cookies are made at bread factories. One of the major ones is Molodechno factory "Konfa". Its assortment includes more than 20 types of classic choux gingerbread cookies, as well as other pastry with nuts, honey, dried apricots and plums.
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