Our French cousin … Le Pain d’ épices

 

It was a holiday in Alsace that I first came across Pain d’épices. This translates as ‘spiced bread’ but it has no yeast and doesn’t require kneading so perhaps we would call it a ‘spiced loaf’ rather than ‘bread’. It’s full of spices from ginger, nutmeg, cloves, star anise to cardamon or cinnamon with orange and lemon zest often added. The most important ingredient of all is honey which give the pain d’epice its characteristic taste and smell. It’s also made with rye flour, although some recipes suggest a mixture of rye and wholewheat flour.

I watched the baker making this Pain d’épices on a street in one of those pretty Alsace villages. The aroma in the street was drawing in the customers. I asked how it was made and, it was no surprise that his was a secret recipe. I did find our hotel owner happy to give me her own family recipe when we returned later in the day. She said that it was a tradition to eat a slice of ‘Pain d’épices’ in the cold weather after coming back from school with a mug of ‘chocolat chaud’.

What you need

250g honey

50g soft dark brown sugar

125g rye flour

125g wholewheat flour

20g baking powder

2 tbps mixture of  

ground ginger, mixed spice, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, star anise

2 eggs

 170 ml milk to mix

How to bake

Preheat the oven 180C/Mark 4.

Heat the honey and sugar in a pan gently, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Remove from the heat.

Mix the flours, baking powder, and spices in a bowl, adding the honey mixture gradually to make a soft dough.

Beat the eggs and milk together until smooth and then add to the other mixture to make a batter.

Pour this into a lined 1 kg loaf tin and place in the oven. Bake for approximately 45 minutes until a cake skewer comes out clean. 

Meryl says : This is a very simple recipe to bake. There are versions of this across France from Dijon to Reims, each with a slightly different twist in the ingredients such as local types of honey or more of a particular spice - the Reims version has more cinnamon in the mixture.  In some ways, there are close links to our own Gingerbread, Parkin and Wheaten Bread recipes. It’s on my list of lovely warming bakes which are perfect for cool autumn days. 

Bon Appétit!