At the weekend I went on a jolly to a nearby city with my new work colleagues. Torun is a lovely medieval town on the banks of the Vistula river.
I had been looking forward to visiting Tourn's gingerbread museum. Torun is famous for gingerbread, not ginger biscuits or ginger cake but rather the kind you get from Aldi or Lidl at Christmas covered in chocolate. They were traditionally baked in beautifully carved moulds (until mechanisation and industrial cutters came into use) then decorated them with icing and were often used as home decorations.
I think the moulds are a highlight of the museum. A whole industry grew up in the town to support the gingerbread production including wood carvers making moulds for families and special occasions.
The museum is really well done, ranging over 4 floors and telling the story of the family which brought gingerbread to prominence in the city ( it reminded me a little of Cadbury World). In an interactive section costumes of the day are projected onto you which is fun if not entirely successful! And in a children's film room the charming story of Little Kates is told. Kate was the daughter of a master gingerbread maker who, when baking gingerbread for her father one day, couldn't find the family gingerbread moulds. Instead she used a glass to cut the rounds but placed the rounds too close together ion the baking tray and they fussed together in the oven (we've all done it!). She though she had wasted a days' worth of ingredients and they wouldn't sell but low and behold Little Kates were a big success and now they are not only the emblem of the museum but a baking style in itself. Maybe something for the Bake Off's R&D people to pick up on.
'Katerzinki' are made of pierniki, the bready ginger bread rather than ginger biscuits/snaps or cake
More on Tourn here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/13/dining/gingerbread-pierniki-torun-poland.html
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