This Einkorn Crusty French Bread recipe is made with our Organic All-Purpose Einkorn Flour. There are also a few easy follow tips that will help you get that crisp outer crust, and soft, chewy inside. So delicious!
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This is a step-by-step guide to making delicious Einkorn French Bread made with all-purpose Einkorn flour.
Here’s the link to the recipe for this delicious Einkorn French Bread with more step by step details
How to make the best einkorn french bread:
There are a few things I’ve learned about all-purpose flour that will make your baking more successful. First of all, you will need to give yourself just a little more time to allow the bread to rise. I suggest an extra cycle of rising and kneading. The einkorn all-purpose flour doesn’t absorb the water quite as fast as regular all-purpose flour. I have found that if I add all the flour at once, the dough is dry and doesn’t rise very well.
If I add most of the flour, let it rise, and knead it again, it can take in more flour. If you don’t add enough flour to this dough, you run the risk of your loaves deflating when you move the pan, close the oven door, or brush them with egg or milk mixture.
Since there isn’t as much gluten in the einkorn flour the process takes just a little longer, maybe 15 minutes longer for that extra cycle of rising and kneading.
Just to give you an idea of how the process works: gluten is formed when water is added to the flour and then mixed. The fermentation process happens when the einkorn flour, yeast and water mix together and that, my friends, is what allows the bread to rise and helps make the bread light and airy.
All-purpose einkorn is a little denser than regular all-purpose flour and tends to be a little less crusty too. While I was testing and tweaking this recipe I was given a hint in how to help get a thicker crust on the outside of the Einkorn french bread. I put the oven racks on the 2 lowest slots in the oven. Before I pre-heated the oven, I put a cookie sheet on the bottom rack with about 3 cups of water. As the oven was preheating, the water became hot, evaporated, and produced more humidity in the oven. I baked my bread in the oven and the higher humidity gave the french bread a thicker crust.
I’ve also heard you can throw 4-5 ice cubes in the bottom of the oven when you bake the bread and it’ll make the crust thicker too. Let me know if you try this method and how it works!
Another obstacle in making einkorn bread is it doesn’t hold its shape quite as well as normal flour. When you’re cutting slits in the top of the bread you run the risk of deflating the entire loaf. To get that artisan-looking slash on the top of your bread it is best to use a very sharp knife, a razor blade or the fancy razor blade tools called a “bakers lame.” If you love baking and want those amazing slashes to come out perfect, a bakers lame is the tool for you! It’s basically a curved razor blade with a handle. I don’t have one of those so I put a razor blade to work this time.
There are also some fancy french bread pans you can use. I made the bread a couple of times, once with my french bread pans and another time without and they both turned out great.
If you’re looking for some more delicious Einkorn recipes made is all-purpose Einkorn flour, here are a few you might wanna try…
EInkorn Lemon Blueberry Scones
Einkorn Chocolate Chip Cookies
Let us know how they turned out!!
Tips for making the best Einkorn Crusty French Bread:
- add an extra cycle of kneading and rising–this will help the bread to have more structure so it doesn’t deflate when rising or cooking.
- add a pan of water in the bottom of the oven to help add more humidity which will give you more crust on your bread.
- use a very sharp knife, razor blade or bakers lame to cut the artisan-looking slashes in the einkorn french bread
- this recipe works great for all-purpose einkorn pretzels and einkorn pizza dough.
Hi! I made this yesterday (May 16, 2019). My Sons loved it and said it was the best bread so far. I adapted it to my bread machine. On the DOUGH (I am disabled and have bad hands) So I made a levain with a new product I found from star yeast. It’s called starter sourdough yeast and it has a dried starter in it made from Rye. I wisked the 11/2 cups warm water, the honey, and 1/4 cup of the einkorn in a bowl and set aside. I was afraid to use the wisk in the machine’s pan due to the non-stick coating. I set this aside for about three hours. It was very spongy looking so I poured that into the machine pot. But before pouring I wisked in another 1/4 more flour to it. Then I counted out 4 cups of flour and covered the water sponge with the flour and sprinkled the salt on top of that and began the dough setting.
The dough setting is knead for 5 minutes, rest for 5, knead for 20 minutes, rise for 50. After the first 5 minutes, I made sure to incorporate the flour on the side and bottom of the pan, and added about 1/4 cup over the top of the dough. When it started kneading again I watched it carefully and added more water 1 tbs at a time because it looked very heavy and dry. That seemed to do it. It rose perfectly.
There was no second knead or rise, after that , so I just pressed the cook button and it cooked for about an hour. Honestly it was the best bread yet and just like french bread (even if it wasn’t formed like it)! I have to make more tomorow. So I didn’t follow the recipe exactly but the amounts were there. The instant sourdough yeast says you have to use the whole package. So I was a little nervous to do this but there was a lot of flour in the bread and I decided to try it. I have to thank you for the recipe. It was the best so far.
Great recipe.
Hi! Is there any harm in letting it rise for extra time? For instant if I have to run out during one of the rises and am gone for an hour, will that mess it up!
Hi Toria, it is possible to let the bread rise too long. If it reaches it’s peak it will sink. However, the time may vary. If your house is cold, for example, it will take longer.
Hello! I just recently learned about Einkorn wheat and am blown away by all the changes made to it over time! How and where did you find the original Einkorn seeds? I’m so excited to order your flour! Thank you, thank you, thank you for producing this!
Hi Kim, our original seed came from a farmer in Germany and we’ve built it up ourselves. It has been a lot of work, but we love it!