<Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> Cookbook: Gingerbread Media: Gingerbread </Td> </Tr> <P> Gingerbread refers to a broad category of baked goods, typically flavored with ginger, cloves, nutmeg or cinnamon and sweetened with honey, sugar or molasses . Gingerbread foods vary, ranging from a soft, moist loaf cake to something close to a ginger biscuit . </P> <P> Originally, the term gingerbread (from Latin zingiber via Old French gingebras) referred to preserved ginger . It then referred to a confection made with honey and spices . Gingerbread is often used to translate the French term pain d'épices (literally "spice bread") or the German term Lebkuchen (The etymology of "Leb" is uncertain . It could have come from Latin "libum" ("flat bread") or German "Laib" ("loaf"). "Kuchen" translates to "cake") or Pfefferkuchen ("pepperbread", literally "pepper cake"). </P> <P> Gingerbread is claimed to have been brought to Europe in 992 CE by the Armenian monk Gregory of Nicopolis (also called Gregory Makar and Grégoire de Nicopolis). He left Nicopolis (in modern - day western Greece) to live in Bondaroy (north - central France), near the town of Pithiviers . He stayed there for seven years and taught gingerbread baking to French Christians . He died in 999 . </P>

When was the first known gingerbread recipe developed