Pain d'Épices
A dense French spice loaf of honey, rye flour, ginger, cinnamon and aniseed, even better after a few days wrapped in paper.
Photograph credit: Pain depices p1050128 (image of pain d'épices on Wikidata Q60738829) by David Monniaux · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons · this resized copy is shared under the same licence
It is a cake that gets better with age, which is unusual and useful. Pain d'épices, spiced bread, comes from Dijon and Alsace, and it is made with honey, rye flour and a mix of warm spices. When it is baked, it is good. After three days, wrapped in greaseproof paper, it is moist, sticky and much more complex.
Honey is the main ingredient and the main sweetener. A mild honey such as acacia or clover gives a gentle flavour, while chestnut or buckwheat honey are darker and more bitter. Warm it gently with the sugar and milk until just dissolved, not boiling. Cool the honey mixture to lukewarm before adding the flour. Hot honey cooks the flour into lumps.
The flours are rye and plain wheat. Rye gives the loaf its dense, close texture and a faint earthy note. The spices are ground ginger, cinnamon, aniseed, cloves and nutmeg, with the zest of an orange. Bicarbonate of soda and baking powder lift the batter slightly.
Pour the batter into a lined loaf tin and bake at 160°C / 320°F for 55 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. Cool in the tin, wrap in paper, and leave it for 2 days before slicing thin and spreading with butter.
What People Ask
How long does Pain d'Épices take to make?
15 minutes of preparation and 55 minutes of cooking, plus 2 days of resting before slicing, so allow 2 days 1 hour from start to finish. The recipe serves 10.
Pain d'Épices: Step by Step
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Heat the oven to 160°C / 320°F (140°C / 285°F fan) and line a 900 g loaf tin.
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Warm the honey, milk and sugar gently until the sugar dissolves. Cool to lukewarm.
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Mix the rye flour, plain flour, spices, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder. Stir in the honey mixture, orange zest and egg until smooth.
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Pour into the tin and bake for 55 minutes until a skewer comes out clean.
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Cool in the tin, wrap in greaseproof paper and leave for 2 days before slicing.
Related guide: Prep, cook and total time.
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A Few Pointers
- Wait for the flavour to mature.
- Cool the honey mixture before adding the flour.
- Serve in thin slices with butter or foie gras.
What to Serve With It
Salted butter · Soft cheese · Hot tea · Jam
Storage
Keeps wrapped in paper for 2 weeks.
Nutrition per Serving
Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. How the figures are worked out.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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