Gingerbread Men

 Baking gingerbread men has become an annual tradition. Not for me. I just eat them....

Gingerbread is not a Greek Christmas tradition.  There are plenty of other syrupy, sugar covered sweets

 A few years ago powdered ginger was very hard to find and it was expensive. Greeks bakers use more cinnamon and cloves and two other spices mahlepi and mastiha. 

Most supermarkets do stock ginger now and even our little grocer has it, powdered or fresh. 

Of course when I googled I was not surprised to read 

'Recipes for Gingerbread originated from  Greece in 2,400 BC' 

My daughter Elli and the girls from her office have a gingerbread baking day just before Christmas 

Maria and Katerina make an amazing array of gingerbread

This is my little house 

If its anything like last year's it's going to be delicious 

Sometime I'm going to have to break it up and eat it

I'm not looking forward to that at all.   Last year's gingerbread house was delectable and I ate most of it by myself

Once it's broken up I'm going to be gobbling it down