Homemade Honey Spice Loaf Cake

This honey spice loaf cake is a dense traditional French bread sweetened with honey & an aromatic blend of spices. This effortless loaf can be enjoyed for weeks as is, toasted with butter and with your coffee or tea. It's an eggless recipe that requires simple pantry ingredients and is so flavorful!

The warmth of the spices will seduce your palate. Although, the aromatic smell in the kitchen would have taken all your senses already! This is a great addition to your 13 desserts of Provence.

Jump to:

• 🥣 Ingredients
• 🥄 How To Make It
• 📋 Variations
• 💭 FAQ
• 📖 Recipe: Honey Spice Loaf Cake

Also called "pain d'épice" in France, this is typically eaten during Christmas time but really you can enjoy it all year round. Every year, I make it along with other seasonal recipes like my sweet Christmas bread, the French mendiants or my classic yule log. It is also a great baking activity for your Advent family calendar.

🥣 Ingredients

Super simple ingredients and mainly in your panty:

• All purpuse flour
• Granulated sugar - white or brown sugar
• Caraway or fennel seeds
• Cinnamon
• Nutmeg
• Baking powder
• Honey, I use the organic one.
• Warm milk

🥄 How To Make It

Putting together this recipe is quite easy and quick. With minimal effort, you'll get this delicious bread with a compact texture. Because of its consistency, you might consider this loaf more of a bread.

Back then, this cake was baked and kept in a dish towel for weeks.

First, in a large bowl, mix all the dry ingredients. You may use a stand mixer if you wish. It will also work if you don't have one.

Next, add warm milk and honey to the bowl and mix well. As you can see in the picture below, you will get a wet texture.

TIP: do not use cold or room temperature milk, the warmth will activate right away the gluten in the flour and give this bread-like texture to your loaf.

Finally, in a butter oven-safe dish, cook the spice cake for 40 minutes or until the toothpick inserted in the middle would come out dry.

📋 Variations

Like any recipe, everyone has his own version and take. Some North American versions include apple sauce for moisture but this one is a French-inspired version.

FLOUR: Traditionally, spice cake is a mix of rye flour and wheat flour. I choose to do it with wheat flour as it is a type we always have in our house.

SPICES: You can play around depending on your favourite flavours.

• If you wish you can double the half teaspoon ground cinnamon.
• Nutmeg: I would not play around with that one as in high portion, it can be toxic. Stick to the half teaspoon ground nutmeg.
• Vanilla extract: this is an option to add some.
• Ground cloves: Again, personal preference, I did add any, you can.
• Cadamon
• Ginger

MILK: You can use 1%, 2%, or 3,25%, it does not matter.

HONEY: You can play around with some flavoured honey. I prefer to stay neutral though.

Serving Suggestions:

In my opinion, a little dust of confectioner sugar is perfect or a little butter if you are enjoying it with a cup of tea or coffee.

If you wish to give it a more seasonal look for winter or Christmas, you can add a cream cheese frosting or a drizzle of caramel icing.

💭 FAQ

More French Christmas Recipes:

• Sweet Christmas Bread: A brioche-like texture with an orange flower aroma
• French Mendiants: easy chocolate bark
• Yule Log: a classic taken step-by-step
• Chocolate Truffles: A 3-ingredient classic

I highly recommend making my recipes using a scale but for your convenience, I have also converted the recipe using this website.