Honey Spice Bread

One of my most treasured cookbooks is a collection of recipes from 15 French Patisserie that a very special friend gave me after a trip to Paris. Sometimes, I flip through the book just to look at the pictures – it’s one of those books. Even though it’s far from Fall, I love the warm sweet and spicy smells that come from my oven and fill my living room about 15 minutes after the bread goes into the oven. You’ll just be minding your own business and then all of a sudden bam the smell practically erupts from the oven and you start counting down the minutes until you can take it out and smother it in butter and jam.

There are all different kinds of bread. Some of them take days or hours and some require yeast and fermentation and stress-relieving punching. But this bread requires little effort and gives you back a whole lot.

Pain d’Epices (Spice Bread)
adapted from the recipe of Patisserie Lerch as written in Paris Boulangerie Patisserie

This is what you’ll need:
Ingredients:
3/4 cup honey
1/2 cup light brown sugar
3/4 cup water
2 cups all-purpose flour (keep each cup separate – you’ll use them at different times)
1 large egg, beaten
1 large egg yolk
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons of:
  grated orange zest (optional)
  allspice
  cinnamon
  nutmeg
  ginger
3/4 teaspoon ground cloves

Special tools: whisk, flour sifter (any mesh sifter or colander will do the trick), 9×5-inch loaf pan

Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter a 9×5-inch loaf pan.

In a saucepan, bring the honey, brown sugar, and water to a boil. Boil over medium heat uncovered for 5 minutes, stirring once or twice. Remove from the heat and gradually sift in 1 cup of flour, whisking after each addition.

In a medium bowl, sift together 1 cup of flour (the other cup), baking powder, baking soda, orange zest, allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves.

In a large mixing bowl (use your KitchenAid if you have one here), whisk the egg and egg yolk until frothy. Add the honey mixture to the eggs and blend. Add the sifted ingredients and mix until blended. Pour the mixture into the loaf pan. (Here you’ll think, wow there isn’t a lot of batter. Did I mess up? No, you didn’t. It rises a ton!)

Bake about 40-45 minutes until the bread is firm to the touch and starts to pull away from the sides of the loaf pan. Cool in the pan on a wire rack.

(note: the darker the loaf pan, the faster the bread will cook. The darker materials absorb more heat than lighter-colored materials, so you’ll want to check on your bread earlier if you use a dark-colored pan like I did)