How to Make French Spice Bread: Pain d’Épices

There’s something magical about the aroma of honey and warm spices filling the kitchen. Today, I’m sharing with you the history and recipe for an Old World Pain d’Épices—French Spice Bread. It’s a bread with roots that stretch back centuries, and it makes a cozy treat any time of year. Watch the video below to see just how easy it is to make traditional Pain d’Épices, then scroll down for more history, tips, and the full recipe.

📜 The Story Behind Pain d’Épices

Pain d’Épices has its earliest roots in the Middle Ages when honey cakes from the East mingled with the spice trade routes of Europe. French bakers, especially in Reims and Dijon, made their names famous for this bread.

• In the medieval kitchens, flour was stone-ground rye, possibly mixed with a landrace wheat or other locally grown grain, but never white flour.
• Sweetness came entirely from honey, which also preserved the bread so it could last for weeks.
• Leavening was natural: barm from brewing ale, or sourdough, not modern yeast.
• No eggs, no butter—those were luxuries. Instead, this was a simple bread, dense and nourishing.

What Is a Landrace Wheat?

A landrace wheat is an old, regionally adapted variety of wheat that developed over centuries through traditional farming rather than modern plant breeding. Unlike today’s standardized wheat, landrace wheats weren’t uniform like modern wheat. They were diverse in height, color, and kernel size, reflecting the soils and climate of each village or valley where they grew. These locally adapted strains of Triticum aestivum (common wheat) had their own rustic characteristic that had adapted to the climate of each region over centuries.

In the Middle Ages, these rustic wheats were often ground and blended with rye, especially in northern Europe, where rye thrived in poor soils but benefited from the sweetness and balance of wheat. Together, rye and landrace wheat produced a hearty flour that would have been perfect for loaves like pain d’Épices—softening the earthiness of whole grain rye.

Note: In today’s recipe video, I talk about rye and how you can use it to make a foolproof sourdough starter.

🍞 Recipe: How to Make French Spice Bread (Pain d’Épices)

Over the centuries, French spice breads gradually shifted from their original sourdough or barm-leavened loaves into the lighter quick breads we know today. And with a greater availability—and affordability—of milk and eggs, these were also added, increasing both the flavor and the nutrition of Pain d’Épices.

For this recipe, I’ve chosen the more modern quick bread approach while keeping the spirit of tradition alive—given that when I use the term modern, I am referring to the version of this bread popular in the 1800s!

For this spice bread, I’m using a blend of rye and spelt flour. Since I don’t have access to a true landrace wheat, spelt makes an excellent stand-in as one of the oldest cultivated grains. Its sweet, nutty flavor pairs beautifully with rye’s earthy character. And if you can’t find spelt in your area, don’t worry—whole wheat flour works just fine as a substitute.

📝 Pain d’Épices Ingredients

• 2 cups (240g) whole grain rye flour
• 1 cup (120g) whole grain spelt flour (or whole wheat flour)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon ground anise (or fennel seeds, finely ground)
• 1 cup (240ml) pourable mild-flavored honey
• 3/4 cup (180ml) whole milk
• 1/4 cup (60ml) strong brewed coffee or black tea (or water, in a pinch)
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Butter, for greasing the pan

👩‍🍳 How to Make Pain d’Épices

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Grease a 9×5-inch loaf pan with butter.
2. In a large mixing bowl, sift together the rye flour, spelt flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spices. Whisk to combine.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the honey, milk, and coffee or tea (or water) until well blended.
4. Add the egg and vanilla extract to the wet ingredients and whisk well.
5. Gradually pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, stirring gently with a spatula until just combined. Be careful not to overmix.
6. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and smooth the top.
7. Bake for 55-60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
8. Allow the bread to cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then transfer it to a wire rack to cool completely before slicing.

Cook’s Notes

• Adjusting Sweetness: Traditional Pain d’Épices is naturally sweetened with honey. If you want a strong honey flavor, use a dark honey like buckwheat or chestnut.
• Modifying Flavor: If you would like a mild molasses flavor, reduce the honey by 1 tablespoon and mix the remaining honey with brown sugar or Sucanat.

💡 Recipe Tips

When it comes to quick breads, stir the batter with a gentle hand just until the dry ingredients are moistened. Do not over mix.

🍽️ How to Enjoy Pain d’Épices

This spice bread is best enjoyed as is, or smeared with a bit of jam or marmalade, preferably homemade. Here are a few recipes you could make:

• Three Citrus Marmalade Jam
• Low Sugar Strawberry Jam
• No Sugar Strawberry Jam
• Strawberry Jam Without Pectin

❄️ Storing and Reheating 🔥

• This French Spice Bread can be stored in the refrigerator, well wrapped, for up to one week or in the freezer for up to three months.
• This bread can be toasted and enjoyed warm as is, or spread with homemade cultured butter (I’ll find the link) for a real treat!

Find More Pain d’Épices Recipes and My Feature Article in Backwoods Home Magazine

Well, sweet friend, I have some exciting news! I was honored to write about how to make Pain d’Épices in an upcoming issue of Backwoods Home Magazine. If you’ve never read Backwoods Home, it’s an exceptional magazine filled with practical homesteading skills, self-sufficiency tips, and traditional cooking wisdom—a true gem for anyone who loves the modern pioneer lifestyle.

📔 Backwoods Home and Self-Reliance

The kind folks at Backwoods Home Magazine are offering my sweet friends an exclusive 50% discount on a subscription! That means you can get their next issue (along with my article and recipe!) and a full year of valuable content at half the price.

So, if you’d like to get your hands on two French Pain d’Épices recipes—one perfect for everyday baking and the other a special treat for holiday time—along with the accompanying article I wrote for the magazine, be sure to subscribe today using my exclusive discount link.

Get Both Magazines at a 50% Discount

Let me know if you decide to subscribe. I’d love to hear what you think of the magazine and this delicious French spice bread.

• Discover all the recipe articles that I’ve written for the Backwoods Home and Self Reliance magazines.

Grind Your Own Flour with the Mockmill

When it comes to electric grain mills, after I did A LOT of research, I decided to buy a Mockmill. And am I so happy I did! The Mockmill is a very affordable but beautifully crafted German-made mill that stone grinds grain with settings ranging from 1 to 10—fine to coarse ground grain.

Learn more about Mockmill electric grain mills for making fresh flour and their Flake Lover’s Flaker that flakes whole grain in minutes. (This is not a sponsored post, I bought the Mockmill products that I show you, and I’m a happy user of their devices in my kitchen.)

• Mockmill 100 Grain Mill unboxing
• Get the Mockmill 100 Stone Grain Mill (Same product I show you in my unboxing video.)
• Flake Lover’s Flaker from Mockmill in action (Using this device, you can flake whole grain in minutes.)

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