On Wednesday 5 December, watch Te Papa chef Bernd Lippmann and his helpers construct the biggest gingerbread house ever baked in Wellington. Buy a kitset miniature gingerbread house to take home and build.
Baking gingerbread houses is part of Christmas celebrations in countries like Germany and Austria. The gingerbread house first appeared in the Grimms' fairy tale‘Hansel and Gretel’, then in a little-known German opera with the same title.
After the show’s first production, only days before Christmas, German opera houses began the tradition of building miniature replicas of the gingerbread house in the story. The custom then spread to bakeries and, eventually, to homes.