Gilding the gingerbread

The recent British Folk Art exhibition at Tate Britain included gingerbread moulds. These lovely carved wooden pieces of kitchen equipment could be used to create interestingly shaped biscuits. They were sometimes embellished with gold leaf, the gilt on the gingerbread. Imagine learning your alphabet,or even your kings and queens through a delicious biscuit. You could identify your biscuit by your initials. We can use alphabet pasta and iced biscuits in the shape of letters in the same way nowadays. Bakewell is famous for its puddings, not for the tarts, which were originally invented by Mr Kipling in his factory in Wythenshawe.All the Bakewell bakeries offer both nowadays, having embraced the confusion. Nearby Ashbourne is famous for its gingerbread, a spicy cake recipe reputed to have been passed on by a French prisoner of war, billeted there during the Napoleonic wars.These moulds from the Old House Museum collection predate the Napoleonic wars, and were used to make a spicy biscuit that I think must have been similar to Dutch speculaas. Some food historians describe it as being like flavoured stale bread, so gilding must have disguised a disappointing taste experience! Local foods and recipes are an important aspect of folklore and local identity, and the Bakewell pudding story will no doubt be told in a blog post soon. Finally, the carpet beetle update - waiting for quotes and grants, while packing continues as the decision has been made to freeze everything, including the cottons.