The Original Gingerbread Trilobites

Check out this cool thing. First of all, this looks like a 5th CD of papers about trilobites. That means there are more papers about trilobites than I ever knew about. Cool! But more importantly, on CD 5 there is an article about really old gingerbread molds in the shape of trilobites! I'm quoting here from that website (DIRT - the Denman Institute for Research on Trilobites - I am so glad this exists, so go check it out):

Trilobites as Gingerbread Molds

Irena Jancarikova & Ivo Chlupac
Charles University, Prague

The Museum of Bohemian Karst in the town of Beroun southwest of Prague (Barrandian area, Czech Republic) possesses in its ethnographical collections two gingerbread molds in the form of trilobites. The first mold (Figure 1) is made of nut wood, measuring 22 by 11 cm. It represents a precisely cut exoskeleton of the Lower Devonian trilobite Odontochile rugosa Hawle and Corda, 1847. The carved image corresponds closely to actual specimens -- only the pygidial border is lacking. The second mold (Figure 2) is made of lime wood, measuring 16.5 by 8.5 cm. It was probably also based on an exoskeleton of Odontochile, but the model appears to have been a counterfeit specimen made by assembling a retouched cephalon and an incomplete thorax and pygidium. Such counterfeits were commonly produced by quarrymen in the Beroun district during the last decade of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century and sold to gullible private collectors who were largely interested in complete specimens.

These two wooden trilobite gingerbread molds are true rarities. They exemplify the deep-rooted tradition of trilobite collecting in the Barrandian area -- a tradition here seen to extend into everyday objects in the life of the local people.

Gingerbread Trilobites

If you are not aware, there is this amazingly cool Steampunk online comic called Girl Genius (actually, I believe they prefer the term "gaslamp fantasy," but since I consider this the epitome of what Steampunk ought to be, I won't shy away from using the phrase). First of all, go read it. I'm a big fan.

Now on to the real point - one of my very favorite things about our Technocrats' Ball was that I got to make gingerbread trilobites (and also sugar-cookie gears - see the picture above). There are a couple of really throw away comments made in the Girl Genius comic to "gingerbread trilobites" which are famously made in a particular city (where the ruling family's symbol is a trilobite). I can't say that my interpretation is necessarily what the makers of Girl Genius had in mind, but I am particularly proud of them and wanted to share (mine were definitely the cookie type of gingerbread, based on a recipe for rolled out and cut gingerbread men, not the more cake-like style of gingerbread). I will now share my super-secret (yet painfully obvious and devastatingly easy) technique, so you may make your very own gingerbread trilobites at home!
Make some gingerbread dough. I used a (very slightly modified) recipe for "Gingies" from a 1950s Betty Crocker Cookbook. If you want to make exactly my cookies, then:

1/3 c. shortening (I use butter or margarine, but only because I am too lazy to measure out gooey shortening, bleh!)
1 c. brown sugar
1 ½ c. dark molasses
½ c cold water
6 c. flour
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. allspice
1 tsp. ginger (I use 1 tbsp. ginger)
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. baking soda dissolved in 3 tbsp cold water

Bake 15-18 min in 350 oven - bur first you have to shape them into cute little trilobites!

First, you need to make a number of oval disks. Take a small scoop of gingerbread dough, about the size of a walnut, into your hands. Roll it into a sphere, and from that into a very short log. Squash the log down onto your cookie sheet, and you should have the necessary oval.
Now, use the blunt edge of a knife to score a line across the oval, about a quarter of the way from one of the ends.On the large side of unmarked cookie, make two lines almost purpendicular to that one, but slightly angled towards each other (\/). Now make a number of lines parallel to the original mark, all down the body of your trilobite.Last of all, add two non-pareils for eyes (I used silver or gold, and they looked smashing). You may instead make two two holes with a chopstick, or even skip the eyes altogether, for more rustic-looking trilobites. Then bake them!
Also, if you were interested, here is my documentation:
Reference to how good the gingerbread of Mechanicsburg is
Reference to gingerbread trilobites