Light Kit for LEGO® Gingerbread House 10267

For those not familiar with what a gingerbread house is, it is a confection made of cookie dough in the shape of a building. Bakers commonly use a crisp ginger biscuit, or a boiled dough that can be molded like clay to create edible figures and decorations. Houses like these, decorated with candy and icing, have become popular Christmas decorations.

A brief history of gingerbread: it is believed to have first been baked in Europe around the 11th century, with crusaders said to have brought back the custom of spiced bread from the Middle East. At the time, ginger was mainly used as a preservative.

According to a French legend, gingerbread was introduced to Europe in 992 by the Armenian monk Gregory Makar, also known as Gregory of Nicopolis, who taught priests and other Christians in Bondaroy, France, how to make it.

The gingerbread we recognize today comes from medieval European kitchens. It was molded into shapes by monks in Franconia, Germany, in the 13th century. The craft became so established in Nuremberg that by the 1600s skilled bakers were employed to create complex works of art from gingerbread, and the city became known as the "Gingerbread Capital of the World".

Medieval bakers used carved boards to create elaborate designs, and in the 13th century the custom spread throughout Europe. German immigrants took it to Sweden, where in 1444 the nuns of Vadstena Abbey were said to have baked gingerbread to relieve indigestion.

The first documented figure-shaped gingerbread biscuits can be traced to the court of Elizabeth I of England, who reportedly had gingerbread figures made in the likeness of her most important guests.

In the early 1800s the tradition of decorated gingerbread houses took hold in Germany. The first are said to have been inspired by the Grimm fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel", in which two children abandoned in the forest discover an edible house. After the book was published, German bakers began baking ornate fairy-tale houses, and the practice became a Christmas tradition, carried to America by Pennsylvania German immigrants.

People still break records with them. A group in Texas set the Guinness World Record in 2013 for the largest gingerbread house, a 2,520-square-foot edible-walled building made to support a hospital trauma center. And Jon Lovitch, executive sous-chef at the New York Marriott Marquis, holds the record for the largest gingerbread village – 135 residential and 22 commercial buildings, plus cable cars and a train, all made of gingerbread.

At Game of Bricks, we are offering a gift with real historical resonance. Take a look at our light kit for the LEGO® Gingerbread House 10267 and let's make a little history together. It is a perfect Christmas present for anyone who owns this set. Bring your holiday season to life by building the LEGO® Gingerbread House 10267, then install our LED lights for LEGO® to make it glow.