Pain D'epice (French Spice Bread) |
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Prep Time: 1 Minutes Cook Time: 40 Minutes |
Ready In: 41 Minutes Servings: 4 |
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From a book I borrowed from the library about world breads, with a few amendments from myself and my husband who actually made the loaf the first time. It's quite hard to cut being extremely dense, but very very tasty and more like a cake than bread (other than the density) Ingredients:
225 ml honey |
225 g wholemeal rye flour |
30 g white sugar |
1/2 teaspoon baking powder |
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda |
30 g ground almonds |
1 teaspoon ginger peel |
2 teaspoons fennel seeds |
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon |
12 cloves, ground |
1/2 orange, zest of, grated |
1/2 lemon, zest of, grated |
milk, and |
sugar, boiled to a syrup for glaze |
Directions:
1. Warm and melt the honey by standing the jar in a pan of hot water, measure it into the rye flour in a bowl and mix together with a wooden spoon. Leave, covered for 1 hour for the flour to absorb all the liquid.
2. Heat the oven to 180C/350F/gas 4. Add the rest of the ingredients, except the glaze, and mix with vigour to ensure everything is spread evenly through the dough - this will be very sticky! Knead the dough on a clean work surface for between 5-10 minutes You can dip hands into a bowl of water at intervals to help with the kneading if necessary.
3. Press the dough mixture intpo a well greased 2lb loaf tin. Make sure it's pushed right into the corners.
4. Bake the loaf on the middle shelf for about 35 mins until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. When you have removed it from the oven, brush with glaze and return to oven for a couple of minutes to set the glaze.
5. Let the bread stand in the tin for a few minutes, then invert onto a wire rack. This keeps very well and because it's made using rye it can be better for being left a couple of days before eating. (We never let it wait long though !).
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