Organic Gingerbread Santa, handmade in South Tyrol
The Organic Gingerbread Santa is a soft honey gingerbread from South Tyrol, shaped as a Santa Claus and baked by hand. The dough, made from rye, wheat, and honey, is refined with classic gingerbread spice. A piece of Christmas for your Advent plate, in organic quality.
Organic Gingerbread Santa is a handmade honey gingerbread from the Ultner Brot bakery, shaped like a friendly Santa Claus. The dough includes rye and wheat flour, honey, butter, and aromatic gingerbread spice, as well as traditional leavening agents: potash and baker's ammonia. A 100g piece of South Tyrolean Christmas baking.
Honey, butter, and gingerbread spice
What makes a good gingerbread is the honey; it sweetens, binds the dough, and keeps it soft and moist.
Gingerbread is one of the oldest types of pastry in existence. It was already being baked in medieval monasteries because honey had a long shelf life and sweetened the dough when sugar was still precious and rare. To this day, honey remains the heart of any authentic gingerbread.
Then there is the gingerbread spice, that warm blend of cinnamon, cloves, anise, and other spices that instantly smells like Christmas. Butter makes the dough tender, and the old-fashioned leavening agents, potash and baker's ammonia, provide the typical light crumb. Both may sound archaic, but they are exactly the baking aids that have made gingerbread crumbly since long before baking powder existed.
Moist, spicy, and hearty, this Santa comes straight from the oven, baked with whole rye and wheat flour and sweetened solely with honey and a little cane sugar. This gives it a robust, spicy flavor, not sticky-sweet like some factory-made gingerbread. Thanks to the honey, it stays soft even after days—it is not a hard biscuit, but a gingerbread you can bite into without effort.
A Santa for the Advent plate
The gingerbread is shaped like a Santa Claus and decorated by hand, a friendly face for the Advent season.
Whether on a colorful cookie plate, in an Advent calendar, or as a small surprise in a Saint Nicholas boot, the gingerbread Santa is a hit with children and adults alike. This soft gingerbread goes perfectly with Advent coffee, hot cocoa, or simply as a snack, and because it is hand-baked, no two Santas are exactly alike.
With a ribbon attached, you can even hang it on the Christmas tree or in the window, making it both a decoration and a treat until someone plucks it from the branch. You can give it as a whole or break it into pieces as you like—a small greeting that is always well-received and which children accept with shining eyes.
As an edible gift, it is a lovely idea, either on its own or alongside a Nut Stollen. A smaller, round version is available as the Organic Gingerbread Saint Nicholas, just right for December 6th.
Baked at Ultner in South Tyrol
Ultner Brot bakes their gingerbread in St. Walburg in the Ulten Valley, where the Schwienbacher family has been making bread and pastries since 1919.
Master baker Hannes Schwienbacher runs the establishment in the fourth generation, and the bakery has been working exclusively with organic ingredients since 1982. The gingerbread is also made from the best organic ingredients, with real honey and butter, and the flour comes from their own mill in the valley.
Over 100 years of baking experience go into every piece, and almost everything is made by hand. You can find the entire Ultner range, including more South Tyrolean Christmas specialties and hearty breads, right here on the shelf.
