Gingerbread House With Candy Decorations

The harder German-style Gingerbread is often used to build gingerbread houses similar to the "witch's house" encountered by Hansel and Gretel. These houses, covered with a variety of candies and icing, are popular Christmas decorations, often built by children with the help of their parents. This form of Gingerbread houses is also popular in Norway. For the last 19 years (as of 2009) the people ofBergen have been trying to make the world's largest gingerbread house city. It's free for every child under the age of 12 to make their own house with the help of their parents.
Another variant uses a boiled dough that can be molded like clay to form inedible statuettes or other decorations. Medieval bakers used carved boards to create elaborate designs.
A significant form of popular art in Europe, major centers of gingerbread mould carvings included Lyon, Nürnberg, Pest, Prague, Pardubice, Pulsnitz, Ulm, and Toruń. Gingerbread moulds often displayed the "news", showing carved portraits of new kings, emperors, and queens, for example. Substantial mould collections are held at the Ethnographic Museum in Toruń, Poland and the Bread Museum in Ulm, Germany.