Pain d’épices

A flour dough containing honey is worked with spices and baked to a deep brown. France’s pain d’épices is a cake whose name means “spice bread.” Loaves baked long and soft and then sliced differ from pieces cut from thin dough into hearts or animal shapes not only in form but also in how the dough is rested and how much it rises. The aromas of anise, cinnamon, ginger and clove come not only from decoration on the surface but from the whole dough.

Rye in Reims, wheat in Dijon

Honey is the sweetener that forms the dough. Some versions also use sugar or sugar syrups, and there is also pur miel, in which honey is the only sweetener. Fruit peel or nuts are sometimes added to wheat flour, rye flour or a mixture of the two.

The specialty of Reims is associated with rye, while in Dijon a method based mainly on wheat, with egg yolks added, has been carried on. The old low-fat way of making it uses a different formula from butter-rich cakes, but some makers today use milk or butter. Even under the same name, the intensity of the honey, the amount of fat and the lightness of the dough vary.

A mother dough rested for two weeks and reworked before baking

Mulot & Petitjean in Dijon rests a mother dough of wheat flour, honey and sugars for at least two weeks. Before baking, the dough is kneaded again until soft in a step called braquage, in which egg yolks, leavening agents and flavorings are added; it is then rolled out and cut, or put into molds. The shop’s pain d’épices contains less than 3% fat. Unlike cakes made by whipping butter, it is baked after egg yolks, leavening agents and other ingredients have been added to the rested mother dough.

Marc Dewalque, who writes on bread-making technique, explains the long resting of a honey-rich mother dough less as a way to gain strong fermentation than as a process that develops a tender texture. A dense dough that uses a large amount of honey instead of water does not ferment with yeast in the same way as ordinary bread eaten with meals. The method of adding egg yolks and leavening agents during braquage, rather than mixing them in at the start of storage, separates the stage of resting the mother dough from the preparation for baking.

Shapes from cutters and molding machines, and icing decorations

In Gertwiller in Alsace, thin dough is cut with metal cutters into hearts and animals. Cakes baked large in a single piece are poured into wooden or paper molds, and for langue de chat, a long, thin shape like a cat’s tongue, a molding machine fitted with an engraved cylinder is also used. Because the dough itself is shaped, the outline remains on the baked cake.

A home recipe presented by the Lips workshop skips the long-stored mother dough. Honey, sugar, wheat flour, almonds, candied citrus peel and spices are combined, and leavening is added last. The dough is left in a cool place for at least 48 hours, kneaded again, adjusted with water to a clay-like consistency if it is stiff, then rolled out and cut.

This dough uses no milk, butter or eggs, but the icing on the surface uses egg white, powdered sugar and kirsch. The dough and the topping are separate formulas. With pasted-on pictures or a name added, it becomes a cake tailored to the person receiving it.

The rise of specialist craftsmen and gifts at winter fairs

In Reims in 1571, there is evidence of an exclusive trade of pain d’épices makers, distinct from bakers and general pastry makers. It was a specialized craft learned through apprenticeship, with skill demonstrated through a masterpiece, and its products were also presented to the court and to the town’s distinguished guests.

In Alsace, it was associated with St. Nicholas Day, Christmas and village fairs; people gave hearts to their sweethearts, and children collected the pictures on the front. Heart shapes and pasted-on pictures also served to express feelings for the recipient and to mark days of celebration. Dijon’s nonnette is a small, round relative that encloses orange jam. Unlike pain d’épices baked large and sliced, each one is filled at the center with jam, adding the sweet-tart flavor of fruit.

How ingredients and the railway changed Dijon’s pain d’épices

In Dijon, traces of these craftsmen appear in the mid-18th century, and by the end of that century they had become independent of the bakers’ and pastry makers’ organizations. The opening of the railway in 1852 spurred industrial production, and by 1881 there were about 10 producers. It was in the second half of the 19th century that Dijon’s reputation rose relative to that of Reims.

After boichet, a confection of wheat and honey, and gardrie, a confection of millet flour that appears in the 16th century, pain d’épices made with wheat came to be produced in this region. In the 19th century, there was also a move to replace expensive honey with cheaper molasses. Leavening agents such as potassium carbonate also played a part in the shift from flat cut-out shapes to a soft, risen texture. Changes in ingredient prices, leavening methods and means of transport also influenced the shape and texture of pain d’épices.

The 20th century and the move to mass production

In the 20th century, one city’s specialty also became a factory product shipped across the country. The Brochet brothers’ factory in Besançon employed about 100 people in 1939 and produced 5 to 6 tonnes a day. After it was damaged by bombing in 1943, it was rebuilt in 1944–46, and in 1960 it produced 6,500 tonnes of pain d’épices alone in a year.

In 1959, Unimel, a sales company bringing together four producers, Brochet, Philbée of Dijon, Vandamme and Van Linden, was established. Brochet joined Générale Alimentaire in 1963, and a new factory was built in 1964–65. This was a change from an era in which separate workshops in each production region competed to one in which sales and production were concentrated in large companies. Today, Mulot & Petitjean and the workshops of Gertwiller carry on the method of resting the mother dough and the techniques of molds and decoration. Even as mass production spread, the techniques have also been handed down in small workshops.

Pig shapes sold at a Paris fair and the legends behind them

At the Paris fair that is the forerunner of today’s Foire du Trône, stalls were permitted in 1841 on the circular part of the Place du Trône, and the fair spread to the surrounding area. The Musée Carnavalet also holds a woodcut from the second half of the 19th century depicting this “pain d’épices fair.” It was a place where a regional confection was sold amid the city’s entertainments.

One legend holds that the pig shape refers to Saint Antoine, that is, Saint Anthony, who is depicted with a pig. Another links it to an accident in 1131, when Philip, son of King Louis VI of France, died after falling from a horse that had been startled by a pig. It is said that even after pigs were banned from roaming the city, only the pigs of the monks of Saint Antoine were allowed to pass, with bells around their necks, and that pig shapes were baked in gratitude. This story is a legend told as a sequel to the accident, and when pig-shaped pain d’épices first appeared is not clear. At the 1957 fair, stallholders dressed as monks handed out pig shapes, reenacting this story at the festival.

Added to stews, and toasted to accompany fish dishes

Besides being eaten as a cake, pain d’épices is also used as an ingredient in stews. Julie Andrieu presents a method of braising rabbit with raisins, prunes, pain d’épices, thyme and beer. Staub’s carbonade-style version also replaces the old bread in the sauce with pain d’épices. As it absorbs the cooking liquid and breaks down, it thickens the sauce, and the honey and spices blend into the meat and beer. This differs in both timing and role from a presentation in which toasted cubes are added at the end.

Toasted pain d’épices can also be paired with fish dishes. In a dish by the Japanese chef Kotaro Meguro, it is sliced thin, toasted and served with isaki (threeline grunt) whose skin has been seared until crisp. A sauce made with tomato and vinegar is poured over it, incorporating a confection of honey and spices into a seafood dish. Unlike the method of dissolving it into a cooking liquid, here the re-toasted cake is plated while keeping its shape.

Glossary