Pain d’épices: the story of French honey spice bread, and a real recipe

In France, a cake can be sold as pain d’épices, literally “spice bread”, without a drop of honey in it. The manufacturers’ own code of practice allows it: invert sugar, sucrose or glucose syrup will do, and only the words “pure honey” promise otherwise. For centuries, though, this was a loaf of honey and rye, its dough left waiting for weeks before it ever saw an oven. How did it lose its honey? And what happens when you give it back?

One jar, one pain d’épices

A 250 g jar makes the whole recipe.

Egyptian Black Seed Honey · €26.90

A word for British bakers. English-language recipes often call pain d’épices “French gingerbread”, and the two are cousins, not twins. The old base is rye flour, honey and spices. Richard Bertinet’s pain d’épices for Great British Chefs, for instance, uses 350 g of honey and 40 g of soft dark brown sugar to 250 g of flour, baked at 180 °C for 35 minutes. The recipe below takes 250 g of honey, no sugar at all, and a slower oven.

The cradle of French pain d’épices is Reims, where sometime in the fourteenth century the pastry cooks began lifting their honey bread with spices.

In 1571, their heirs, the pain-d’épiciers, formed a guild of their own, apart from the bakers and the pastry cooks, which Henri IV recognised in 1596. Nobody joined without an apprenticeship and a masterpiece. Before the Revolution, the city counted only twelve masters.

In 1694, the first Dictionnaire de l’Académie française gave as its example the “pain d’espice de Rheims”, made of rye, “sugar foam, honey, spice”. Sugar was already sharing the place. In 1765, Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie put it bluntly: “a loaf of honey and rye flour”.

In Paris, it was the treat of the streets. In 1814, the schoolboy Jules Michelet, too poor for a proper lunch, bought a figure of it “for two sous […] a superb man, a giant in height”, he recounts in Ma jeunesse. In class he snapped off an arm, then a leg, and nibbled them in secret. “What are you eating?” asked his neighbours. “My dessert.”

But another town is already eyeing the crown.

In the nineteenth century, Dijon took over, with wheat in place of rye and a method that begins with waiting.

Mulot & Petitjean traces its birth to 1796; in 1805, Barnabé Boittier set up his pain d’épices business in Place Bossuet, where the historic shop still opens its doors. In the twentieth century, Dijon counted as many as twelve houses. This is the last factory in the city.

The method starts with a mother dough of flour, honey and sweeteners, left to rest for a few weeks. Then comes the braquage: the dough is taken up again and receives egg yolks, raising agents and flavourings. The code of practice even allows already-baked pain d’épices to go in.

It is also the century in which honey, grown too expensive, gave way to molasses, notes a 2022 university study. Other people preferred to write down, in black and white, what this cake must contain.

In Germany, the cousin of pain d’épices is called Lebkuchen, and Nuremberg is its capital. Its finest pieces follow written rules.

Since 1 July 1996, “Nürnberger Lebkuchen” has been a protected geographical indication: it guarantees the place, nothing else. Under the official German rules, an Elisenlebkuchen contains at least 25% almonds, hazelnuts or walnuts, no more than 10% flour, and no fat. A Honigkuchen, for its part, draws at least half of its added sugar from honey.

We tell the story of the forest beekeepers who supplied Nuremberg in our honey gift box guide. The real secret lies elsewhere: the “keeping dough”. Flour and honey, mixed alone, wait in the cool for weeks, sometimes months. Lutz Geißler, a German bread specialist, reconstructed a Honigkuchen from 1883: dough made on the first day, baked on the seventy-sixth. In between, lactic bacteria turn part of the sugars into acids; the aroma rounds out, and the raising agents find the acidity they need.

In Provence too, honey and almonds reign at Christmas: the king of the 13 desserts of Christmas is nougat, above all the black, made of honey and almonds.

Honey plays three roles in a pain d’épices: it keeps the crumb soft, it browns the crust, it helps the dough rise.

Moisture first. Honey draws water from the air, the very property that obliges you to close the jar if you want to store honey well. A Lebkuchen left in dry air hardens; in damper air, it turns tender again.

Colour next. Honey browns and burns faster than sugar: the University of Missouri advises lowering the oven temperature when you use it. Hence our 160 °C (320 °F).

The rise last. A pinch of bicarbonate of soda balances the acidity of honey and improves the rise, notes the same document: what potash and months of waiting did, in their own way.

The honey decides the colour and the final note. One 250 g jar makes one loaf: choose it for its character, because the oven is hard on the finest nuances.

The White Honey arrives creamy: its natural crystallisation is no problem at all, because it melts in lukewarm water.

One exception: the Rose Aromiel from Russia, a honey-based preparation made with acacia honey and rosehip extract, whose fragrance will not stand more than 40 °C. It will not go in the oven, but onto a cooled slice.

To compare, nothing beats three loaves side by side, one per honey.

The Jujubier from Yemen

Caramel and warm wood: the deepest version.

Jujubier Honey from Yemen · €47.90

One jar of honey, 250 g of half-rye, half-wheat flour, a night’s rest, an hour at 160 °C (320 °F) and a day of patience. Not a gram of sugar: this is a pure honey pain d’épices.

Proportions checked against the French reference recipes cited in the sources: as much honey as flour, a gentle bake, a final rest.

1 loaf, 24 to 26 cm (12 slices)
Preparation: 20 min · Dough rest: 12 h · Baking: 1 h at 160 °C (320 °F) · Cake rest: 24 h · Total time: 37 h 20

Ingredients

• 250 g honey (one jar)
• 125 g rye flour
• 125 g plain white flour (French T55)
• 100 ml water
• 2 eggs
• 50 g unsalted butter
• 1 level teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground aniseed
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• ½ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 pinch ground clove
• 1 pinch ground black pepper
• The zest of an unwaxed orange
• 1 pinch of salt

Method

1. The day before, heat the water without letting it boil then, off the heat, melt the honey in it.
2. In a large bowl, mix the flours, spices, zest and salt. Pour in the warm honey and mix to a thick, smooth dough.
3. Cover and leave to rest for 12 hours at room temperature: this is your mother dough.
4. The next day, preheat the oven to 160 °C (320 °F) and line a 24 to 26 cm loaf tin with baking parchment.
5. Mix the beaten eggs into the dough, followed by the melted and slightly cooled butter.
6. Sprinkle the bicarbonate of soda through a small sieve and mix just enough to make an even dough.
7. Pour into the tin and bake for 1 hour. From 50 minutes, push a knife blade into the centre: it should come out dry. If the top darkens too quickly, cover it with baking parchment.
8. Leave to cool slightly for 10 minutes, turn out onto a wire rack and let it cool completely.
9. Wrap the pain d’épices in cling film or a clean cloth and wait 24 hours before slicing.

Serve it in thin slices, with a few Cinnamon Coated Almonds: the fine coating gives way under the tooth, and the spice settles in without ever stinging.

White Honey from Kyrgyzstan

Creamy in the jar, it makes the gentlest version.

White Honey from Kyrgyzstan · €26.90

And if the wait feels long, think of the Honigkuchen of 1883: seventy-five days. Yours asks for only one.