Christmas cookies - how long have they been around?

The most important things in brief

• Even before the year draws to a close, we find gingerbread and speculoos in the supermarket again.
• And, like every year, the question inevitably arises: buy or bake Christmas cookies yourself?
• The fact that you can later have home-made products in stock and that you can have a lot of fun with the children in the kitchen speaks for baking.
• But since when are cookies actually a tradition at Christmas?

A cozy afternoon in Advent. It's already dark outside, but the kitchen is brightly lit and full of activity. Because the whole family has gathered to bake Christmas cookies and nibble on the dough, dust themselves with flour and cut out shapes from the dough. Christmas music is playing in the background and the kitchen needs a makeover - but everyone is having a lot of fun.

Communal baking is not originally a Christian custom

Of course, the history of the Christmas cookies cannot be reconstructed exactly. But it is fairly certain that baking on festive occasions was already ritualized in antiquity, i.e. it took place in a community. This is not only proven by pictorial representations from pre-Christian times, but also by excavations from back then.

The forerunners of our Christmas cookies can be dated back to the Middle Ages. In the monasteries, it was customary not only to make bread for Advent, but also to make finer, sweet pastries. It is therefore considered certain that the Christmas stollen was "invented" in the abbeys. And not only the Christmas stollen, but also gingerbread and gingerbread probably come from the bakeries of the medieval monastery.

Good for the mood

Gingerbread and gingerbread in particular were not only popular as sweet pastries in the Advent convents, but were also considered beneficial for the mood in the walls. It was probably not always exceptionally good when winter was just around the corner and it was getting drafty and dark in the monastery.

But Hildegard von Bingen, herself an abbess and Benedictine nun and thus used to monastic life, described the baked goods as a mood lifter in the abbey. Because nutmeg was often used as a spice, and nutmeg was described by Hildegard von Bingen as mood-enhancing. Hildegard, who was canonized in 1584, had already written visionary healing and natural history writings in the 12th century, which also dealt with herbs and spices.

Cookies and Christmas cookies are indispensable in Central Europe

In Switzerland they are called Guetzli, Gutzi or Biscuit, and in Germany there are also different names for the Advent pastries, depending on the region. But also in other Central European countries, Christmas is unimaginable without cinnamon stars, vanilla crescents or Bethmännchen. Whether it's panettone, printen, Christmas stollen or aniseed biscuits, it's all about preparing the Christmas cookies together.

And it's also a bit about the time of year. Already in late summer supermarkets offer the first dominoes and gingerbread, it's a bit exaggerated. The kitchen dusty with flour, the sparkle in the children's eyes and the fingers in the bowl of dough to lick away the leftovers are nicer.

If you're short on time to bake your own this year, here are some great alternatives. After all, you can't do without cookies in Advent and at Christmas either.