1.
Ginger
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Ginger is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or simply ginger, is widely used as a spice or a folk medicine. It is a perennial which grows annual stems about a meter tall bearing narrow green leaves. Ginger is in the family Zingiberaceae, to also belong turmeric, cardamom. Ginger originated in the tropical rainforest in Southern Asia, although ginger no longer grows wild, it is thought to have originated on the Indian subcontinent because the ginger plants grown in India show the largest amount of genetic variation. Ginger was exported to Europe via India in the first century AD as a result of the spice trade and was used extensively by the Romans. The distantly related dicots in the genus Asarum are commonly called wild ginger because of their similar taste. But this may be Sanskrit folk etymology, and the word may be from an ancient Dravidian name that produced the Tamil and Malayalam name for the spice, inchi-ver. The word probably was readopted in Middle English from Old French gingibre, ginger produces clusters of white and pink flower buds that bloom into yellow flowers. Because of its appeal and the adaptation of the plant to warm climates. It is a perennial plant with annual leafy stems, about a meter tall. Traditionally, the rhizome is gathered when the stalk withers, it is scalded, or washed and scraped, to kill it. The fragrant perisperm of the Zingiberaceae is used as sweetmeats by Bantu, ginger produces a hot, fragrant kitchen spice. Young ginger rhizomes are juicy and fleshy with a mild taste. They are often pickled in vinegar or sherry as a snack or cooked as an ingredient in many dishes and they can be steeped in boiling water to make ginger tisane, to which honey is often added, sliced orange or lemon fruit may be added. Ginger can be made into candy, or ginger wine, which has been made commercially since 1740, mature ginger rhizomes are fibrous and nearly dry. Fresh ginger can be substituted for ground ginger at a ratio of six to one, although the flavors of fresh, powdered dry ginger root is typically used as a flavoring for recipes such as gingerbread, cookies, crackers and cakes, ginger ale, and ginger beer. Candied ginger, or crystallized ginger, is the root cooked in sugar until soft, fresh ginger may be peeled before eating. For longer-term storage, the ginger can be placed in a plastic bag, in Indian cuisine, ginger is a key ingredient, especially in thicker gravies, as well as in many other dishes, both vegetarian and meat-based
2.
Honey
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Honey /ˈhʌni/ is a sugary food substance produced and stored by certain social hymenopteran insects. It is produced from the secretions of plants or insects, such as floral nectar or aphid honeydew, through regurgitation, enzymatic activity. The variety of honey produced by bees is the most well-known, due to its worldwide commercial production. Honey gets its sweetness from the monosaccharides fructose and glucose, and has about the relative sweetness as granulated sugar. It has attractive properties for baking and a distinctive flavor that leads some people to prefer it to sugar. Most microorganisms do not grow in honey, so sealed honey does not spoil, however, honey sometimes contains dormant endospores of the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, which can be dangerous to babies, as it may result in botulism. People who have an immune system should not eat honey because of the risk of bacterial or fungal infection. Although some evidence indicates honey may be effective in treating diseases and other conditions, such as wounds and burns. Providing 64 calories in a serving of one tablespoon equivalent to 1272 kj per 100 g. Honey is generally safe, but may have various, potential adverse effects or interactions with excessive consumption, existing disease conditions, or drugs. Honey use and production have a long and varied history as an ancient activity, depicted in Valencia, in cold weather or when other food sources are scarce, adult and larval bees use stored honey as food. By contriving for bee swarms to nest in man-made hives, people have been able to semidomesticate the insects, Bee digestive enzymes - invertase, amylase, and diastase - and gastric acid hydrolyze sucrose to a mixture of glucose and fructose. The bees work together as a group with the regurgitation and digestion for as long as 20 minutes until the product reaches storage quality. It is then placed in honeycomb cells left unsealed while still high in content and natural yeasts. The bees then cap the cells with wax to seal them, as removed from the hive by a beekeeper, honey has a long shelf life and will not ferment if properly sealed. Another source of honey is from a number of species, such as the wasps Brachygastra lecheguana and Brachygastra mellifica. These species are known to feed on nectar and produce honey, Honey is collected from wild bee colonies, or from domesticated beehives. The honey is stored in honeycombs, wild bee nests are sometimes located by following a honeyguide bird
3.
Molasses
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Molasses, or black treacle, is a viscous by-product of refining sugarcane or sugar beets into sugar. Molasses varies by amount of sugar, method of extraction, sugarcane molasses is agreeable in taste and aroma, and is primarily used for sweetening and flavoring foods in U. S. Canada and elsewhere, while sugar beet molasses is foul-smelling and unpalatable, so it is used as an animal feed additive in Europe and Russia. It is a component of fine commercial brown sugar. Sweet sorghum syrup may be colloquially called sorghum molasses in the southern United States, similar products include treacle, honey, maple syrup, corn syrup, and invert syrup. Most of these alternative syrups have milder flavors, cane molasses is a common ingredient in baking and cooking. To make molasses, sugar cane is harvested and stripped of leaves and its juice is extracted, usually by cutting, crushing, or mashing. The juice is boiled to concentrate it, promoting sugar crystallization, the result of this first boiling is called first syrup, and it has the highest sugar content. First syrup is usually referred to in the Southern states of the U. S. as cane syrup, second molasses is created from a second boiling and sugar extraction, and has a slightly bitter taste. The third boiling of the sugar syrup yields dark, viscous blackstrap molasses, the majority of sucrose from the original juice has crystallized and been removed. The caloric content of blackstrap molasses is mostly due to the remaining sugar content. Blackstrap is also a source of potassium. Blackstrap molasses has long been sold as a dietary supplement, blackstrap molasses is significantly more bitter than regular molasses. It is sometimes used in baking or for producing ethanol, as an ingredient in cattle feed, the term black-strap or blackstrap is an Americanism dating from 1875 or before. Its first known use is in a book by detective Allan Pinkerton in 1877, Molasses made from sugar beets differs from sugarcane molasses. Only the syrup left from the final stage is called molasses. Intermediate syrups are called high green and low green, and these are recycled within the plant to maximize extraction. Beet molasses is 50% sugar by dry weight, predominantly sucrose, beet molasses is limited in biotin for cell growth, hence, it may be supplemented with a biotin source
4.
Cloves
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Cloves are the aromatic flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae, Syzygium aromaticum. They are native to the Maluku Islands in Indonesia, and are used as a spice. Cloves are commercially harvested primarily in Bangladesh, Indonesia, India, Madagascar, Zanzibar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, cloves are available throughout the year. The clove tree is an evergreen that grows up to 8–12 m tall, with large leaves, the flower buds initially have a pale hue, gradually turn green, then transition to a bright red when ready for harvest. Cloves are harvested at 1. 5–2.0 cm long, and consist of a calyx that terminates in four spreading sepals. Cloves are used in the cuisine of Asian, African, and the Near and Middle East countries, lending flavor to meats, curries, cloves may be used to give aromatic and flavor qualities to hot beverages, often combined with other ingredients such as lemon and sugar. They are an element in spice blends such as pumpkin pie spice. In Mexican cuisine, cloves are best known as clavos de olor and they are also used in Peruvian cuisine, in a wide variety of dishes as carapulcra and arroz con leche. A major component of clove taste is imparted by the chemical eugenol, and it pairs well with cinnamon, allspice, vanilla, red wine and basil, as well as onion, citrus peel, star anise, or peppercorns. The spice is used in a type of cigarette called kretek in Indonesia, clove cigarettes have been smoked throughout Europe, Asia and the United States. Starting in 2009, clove cigarettes must be classified as cigars in the US, because of the bioactive chemicals of clove, the spice may be used as an ant repellent. Cloves can be used to make a fragrance pomander when combined with an orange, when given as a gift in Victorian England, such a pomander indicated warmth of feeling. Cloves are used in Indian Ayurvedic medicine, Chinese medicine, and western herbalism, cloves are used as a carminative, to increase hydrochloric acid in the stomach and to improve peristalsis. Cloves are also said to be a natural anthelmintic, the essential oil is used in aromatherapy when stimulation and warming are needed, especially for digestive problems. Topical application over the stomach or abdomen are said to warm the digestive tract, applied to a cavity in a decayed tooth, it also relieves toothache. Because the herb is so warming, it is contraindicated in any persons with fire symptoms, the U. S. Food and Drug Administration has reclassified eugenol, downgrading its effectiveness rating. The FDA now believes not enough evidence indicates clove oil or eugenol is effective for toothache pain or a variety of types of pain. Studies to determine its effectiveness for fever reduction, as a mosquito repellent and it remains unproven whether clove may reduce blood sugar levels
5.
Nutmeg
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Nutmeg is one of the two spices – the other being mace – derived from several species of tree in the genus Myristica. The most important commercial species is Myristica fragrans, a tree indigenous to the Banda Islands in the Moluccas of Indonesia. The first harvest of nutmeg trees takes place 7–9 years after planting, Nutmeg is usually used in powdered form. This is the tropical fruit that is the source of two different spices, obtained from different parts of the plant. Several other commercial products are produced from the trees, including essential oils, extracted oleoresins. The common or fragrant nutmeg, Myristica fragrans, is native to the Banda Islands in the Moluccas, other species used to adulterate the spice include Papuan nutmeg M. argentea from New Guinea, and M. malabarica from India. In the 17th-century work Hortus Botanicus Malabaricus, Hendrik van Rheede records that Indians learned the usage of nutmeg from the Indonesians through ancient trade routes, Nutmeg trees are dioecious plants which are propagated sexually and asexually, the latter being the standard. Sexual propagation by seedling yields 50% male seedlings, which are unproductive, epicotyl grafting, approach grafting, and patch budding have proved successful, with epicotyl grafting being the most widely adopted standard. Air-layering, or marcotting, is an alternative though not preferred method because of its low success rate, Nutmeg and mace have similar sensory qualities, with nutmeg having a slightly sweeter and mace a more delicate flavour. Mace is often preferred in light dishes for the bright orange, Nutmeg is used for flavouring many dishes, usually in ground or grated form, and is best grated fresh in a nutmeg grater. In Indonesian cuisine, nutmeg is used in dishes, mainly in many spicy soups, such as some variant of soto, konro, oxtail soup, sup iga, bakso. It is also used in gravy for meat dishes, such as beef stew, ribs with tomato, to European derived dishes such as bistik, rolade. Sliced nutmeg fruit flesh could be made as manisan, either wet, in Penang cuisine, dried, shredded nutmeg rind with sugar coating is used as toppings on the uniquely Penang ais kacang. Nutmeg rind is also blended or boiled to make iced nutmeg juice, in Indian cuisine, nutmeg is used in many sweet, as well as savoury, dishes. It is also added in quantities as a medicine for infants. It may also be used in quantities in garam masala. Ground nutmeg is also smoked in India, in Middle Eastern cuisine, ground nutmeg is often used as a spice for savoury dishes. In traditional European cuisine, nutmeg and mace are used especially in dishes and in processed meat products, they are also used in soups, sauces
6.
Cinnamon
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Cinnamon is a spice obtained from the inner bark of several tree species from the genus Cinnamomum. Cinnamon is used in sweet and savoury foods. The term cinnamon also refers to its mid-brown colour, Cinnamon is the name for perhaps a dozen species of trees and the commercial spice products that some of them produce. All are members of the genus Cinnamomum in the family Lauraceae, only a few Cinnamomum species are grown commercially for spice. The English word cinnamon, attested in English since the 15th century, derives from the Greek κιννάμωμον kinnámōmon, via Latin, the Greek was borrowed from a Phoenician word, which was similar to the related Hebrew qinnamon. The name cassia, first recorded in English around AD1000, was borrowed via Latin and ultimately derives from Hebrew qtsīʿāh, Cinnamon has been known from remote antiquity. It was imported to Egypt as early as 2000 BCE, the first Greek reference to kasia is found in a poem by Sappho in the seventh century BCE. According to Herodotus, both cinnamon and cassia grew in Arabia, together with incense, myrrh, and ladanum, the phoenix was reputed to build its nest from cinnamon and cassia. Herodotus mentions other writers who believed the source of cassia was the home of Dionysos, egyptian recipes for kyphi, an aromatic used for burning, included cinnamon and cassia from Hellenistic times onward. The gifts of Hellenistic rulers to temples sometimes included cassia and cinnamon, as well as incense, myrrh, Cinnamon was brought around the Arabian peninsula on rafts without rudders or sails or oars, taking advantage of the winter trade winds. Pliny also mentions cassia as a agent for wine. According to Pliny, a Roman pound of cassia, cinnamon, or serichatum cost up to 300 denarii, diocletians Edict on Maximum Prices from 301 AD gives a price of 125 denarii for a pound of cassia, while an agricultural labourer earned 25 denarii per day. Malabathrum leaves were used in cooking and for distilling an oil used in a sauce for oysters by the Roman gourmet Gaius Gavius Apicius. Malabathrum is among the spices that, according to Apicius, any good kitchen should contain, through the Middle Ages, the source of cinnamon was a mystery to the Western world. From reading Latin writers who quoted Herodotus, Europeans had learned that cinnamon came up the Red Sea to the ports of Egypt. Marco Polo avoided precision on the topic, Pliny the Elder wrote in the first century that traders had made this up to charge more, but the story remained current in Byzantium as late as 1310. The first mention that the spice grew in Sri Lanka was in Zakariya al-Qazwinis Athar al-bilad wa-akhbar al-‘ibad about 1270 and this was followed shortly thereafter by John of Montecorvino in a letter of about 1292. Indonesian rafts transported cinnamon directly from the Moluccas to East Africa, venetian traders from Italy held a monopoly on the spice trade in Europe, distributing cinnamon from Alexandria
7.
Sugar
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Sugar is the generic name for sweet, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. There are various types of derived from different sources. Simple sugars are called monosaccharides and include glucose, fructose, the table sugar or granulated sugar most customarily used as food is sucrose, a disaccharide of glucose and fructose. Sugar is used in prepared foods and it is added to some foods, in the body, sucrose is hydrolysed into the simple sugars fructose and glucose. Other disaccharides include maltose from malted grain, and lactose from milk, longer chains of sugars are called oligosaccharides or polysaccharides. Some other chemical substances, such as glycerol may also have a sweet taste, low-calorie food substitutes for sugar, described as artificial sweeteners, include aspartame and sucralose, a chlorinated derivative of sucrose. Sugars are found in the tissues of most plants and are present in sufficient concentrations for efficient commercial extraction in sugarcane, the world production of sugar in 2011 was about 168 million tonnes. The average person consumes about 24 kilograms of sugar each year, equivalent to over 260 food calories per person, since the latter part of the twentieth century, it has been questioned whether a diet high in sugars, especially refined sugars, is good for human health. Sugar has been linked to obesity, and suspected of, or fully implicated as a cause in the occurrence of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia, macular degeneration, the etymology reflects the spread of the commodity. The English word sugar ultimately originates from the Sanskrit शर्करा, via Arabic سكر as granular or candied sugar, the contemporary Italian word is zucchero, whereas the Spanish and Portuguese words, azúcar and açúcar, respectively, have kept a trace of the Arabic definite article. The Old French word is zuchre and the contemporary French, sucre, the earliest Greek word attested is σάκχαρις. The English word jaggery, a brown sugar made from date palm sap or sugarcane juice, has a similar etymological origin – Portuguese jagara from the Sanskrit शर्करा. Sugar has been produced in the Indian subcontinent since ancient times and it was not plentiful or cheap in early times and honey was more often used for sweetening in most parts of the world. Originally, people chewed raw sugarcane to extract its sweetness, sugarcane was a native of tropical South Asia and Southeast Asia. Different species seem to have originated from different locations with Saccharum barberi originating in India and S. edule, one of the earliest historical references to sugarcane is in Chinese manuscripts dating back to 8th century BC that state that the use of sugarcane originated in India. Sugar was found in Europe by the 1st century AD, but only as an imported medicine and it is a kind of honey found in cane, white as gum, and it crunches between the teeth. It comes in lumps the size of a hazelnut, sugar is used only for medical purposes. Sugar remained relatively unimportant until the Indians discovered methods of turning sugarcane juice into granulated crystals that were easier to store, crystallized sugar was discovered by the time of the Imperial Guptas, around the 5th century AD
8.
Ginger snap
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A ginger biscuit, ginger nut or ginger snap is a globally popular biscuit based snack food, flavoured with ginger. Ginger biscuits are flavoured with powdered ginger and a variety of spices, most commonly cinnamon, molasses. There are many recipes for ginger nuts, in the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, Australia, and New Zealand and most of the former British Empire, they are often called ginger nuts. Ginger nuts are not to be confused with pepper nuts, which are a variety of gingerbread, somewhat smaller in diameter, mcVities ginger nuts was listed as the tenth most popular biscuit in the UK to dunk into tea. Ginger nuts are the most popular biscuit in New Zealand, normally attributed to its tough texture which can withstand dunking into liquid, leading biscuit manufacturer Griffins estimates 60 million of them are produced each year. This has become the title of a book,60 Million Gingernuts, cloves, cinnamon and cardamom are important ingredients of these, and the actual ginger taste is not prominent. Allspice was used formerly to season ginger biscuits, but cloves replaced it later, in the United States, the usual term is ginger snaps, and they are generally round drop cookies, usually between 3 mm and 6 mm thick, with prominent cracks in the top surface. One recipe for these cookies contains maple syrup
9.
Gingerbread man
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A gingerbread man is a biscuit or cookie made of gingerbread, usually in the shape of a stylized human, although other shapes, especially seasonal themes and characters, are common. Gingerbread dates from the 15th century, and figural biscuit-making was practiced in the 16th century, the first documented instance of figure-shaped gingerbread biscuits was at the court of Elizabeth I of England. She had the gingerbread figures made and presented in the likeness of some of her important guests, most gingerbread men share a roughly humanoid shape, with stubby feet and no fingers. Many gingerbread men have a face, though whether the features are indentations within the face itself or other candies stuck on with icing or chocolate varies from recipe to recipe. According to the Guinness Book of Records, the world’s largest gingerbread man was made by the staff of the IKEA Furuset store in Oslo, Norway, the gingerbread man weighed 1435.2 pounds. The Gingerbread Man is a tale about a gingerbread man who comes to life, outruns an elderly couple and various animals. Gingy is a gingerbread man character in the Shrek series of animated movies. He is derived from the fairy tale The Gingerbread Man, in Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovskys famous ballet The Nutcracker, the eponymous hero leads an army of gingerbread men against the Mouse King and his fellows. The Gingerbread People are the characters in the game Candy Land. The Gingerbread Men were featured in The Muppet Show, in the Don Knotts episode, the Gingerbread Men sing the song Sweet Gingerbread Man as the opening number. The lead Gingerbread Man is a hand-rod Muppet performed by Frank Oz while the full-bodied Gingerbread Men were performed by Jim Henson, Dave Goelz, Richard Hunt, in the film The Brothers Grimm, a nightmarish twist on the Gingerbread Man appears. A young child is splashed with mud and the mud steals the eyes, nose. It then forms a small mud body with the childs stolen features for a face, the creature grabs the child and absorbs her into itself. It runs off yelling, You cant catch me, Im the Gingerbread Man
Cookbook: Gingerbread 
Media: Gingerbread
