Pain d'epices (French spice bread)
This spiced quick bread is easy to make, with a lovely spice flavor and light honey sweetness.
Servings: 12 (approx - makes 1 loaf)
Calories: 147kcal
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Ingredients
- 1 cup milk
- ⅔ cup honey
- 2 tablespoon brown sugar
- 1 ¼ cup rye flour
- ¾ cup all purpose flour plain flour
- 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda bicarbonate of soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- ¼ teaspoon ground anise aniseed
- 1 small orange zest ie from 1 small orange, or from around ½ large orange
Instructions
- Lightly butter a standard 9 x 5in (22.5 x 12.5cm) loaf pan/baking tin. Line the pan with parchment as a "sling", meaning cut a piece that's the width of the long side of the pan and line through the long sides and bottom with the paper hanging over each side. Fold the paper back over the top edges slightly and stick the paper against the sides of the pan with the butter so that the paper stays in place well.
- Place the milk, honey and brown sugar in a small pan and warm over a medium-low heat until the sugar and honey dissolves and everything is well combined. Remove from the heat and leave to cool to lukewarm.
- Preheat the oven to 355F/180C.
- Place the rye flour, all purpose (plain) flour, baking powder, baking soda (bicarbonate of soda), salt and spices (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves and anise) in a large bowl and stir or whisk together so that everything is well distributed.
- Add the orange zest to the cooled milk mixture and mix in, then add the mixture to the flour mixture and mix. You want everything well combined and without obvious lumps of flour, but take care not to over-mix as the raising agents get to work straight away and you don't want to mix out the air bubbles.
- Pour the mixture into the prepared loaf tin and gently spread to the edges and smooth the top so that it's relatively flat on top.
- Bake for approximately 45 - 55 minutes until the top is golden brown. You can test with a skewer in the middle to check it comes out clean. Once baked, remove the bread from the pan and allow to cool on a cooling rack at least 10 minutes before slicing.
Video
Notes
I highly recommend weighing ingredients, if at all possible, to be more accurate, particularly when baking.
If you can only find anise seeds, as I did, (and same applies for any other spices) then grind slightly more than indicated before measuring the ground amount.
Nutrition
Calories: 147kcal | Carbohydrates: 34g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 1g | Saturated Fat: 0.4g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 0.2g | Cholesterol: 2mg | Sodium: 106mg | Potassium: 149mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 19g | Vitamin A: 38IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 58mg | Iron: 1mg
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