Tips For Baking With Einkorn Flour
Since I started baking with Einkorn Flour, I’ve learned a thing or two, and I’ve decided to share my tips. For many of you, this is the post you have been waiting for so I hope you enjoy!
Baking with einkorn flour requires some tweaks but the health benefits of einkorn are worth it, and my persistence is paying off!
I’ll show you how I mill einkorn flour, adapt recipes for einkorn, make white einkorn flour, and add a lovely artisan crust to my einkorn breads.
Before I share my tips, keep in mind that whole wheat flour is simply wheat berries that have been milled into flour. The white flour thatyou buy at the store is whole wheat flour that has been sifted to remove the bran and germ. And if the label says “bleached white flour,” that means the white flour also has been chemically bleached (yuck!) to make it whiter and improve the shelf life. White flour is also sometimes referred to as high extraction flour.
Remember also that any flour made from modern wheat has been hybridized many times to, among other things, increase it’s rise. Unfortunately, this also means it has a different type of gluten than the original wheat and it is more difficult to digest.
Tip #1: How Much Flour Does One Cup of Einkorn Berries Make?
When I grind Einkorn myself ( I have a kitchen aid attachment) 1 Cup of Whole Einkorn Wheat Berries = about 1 1/2 Cups of Einkorn Flour.
Tip #2: Adapting Quick Bread Recipes
You can use whole Einkorn flour exactly as a recipe calls for if it is used for a quick batter type bread. Pancakes, waffles, muffins, and banana type breads. Anything you do not have to shape. You DO however need to check your baking powder, because if it’s expired, you won’t get a good rise with einkorn flour.
Tip #3: Adapting Dough Bread Recipes
If you are making a dough type bread – use 1/3 less liquid than it calls for in the recipe. It is more important to use less liquid rather than using MORE flour. You’ll be tempted to add more flour but don’t because when you add more flour you throw off the balance of the flavors…and lose the wonderful taste.
The comparison below shows what happens when I use too much liquid in my einkorn recipe.
You’ll see my picture of dinner rolls baked with modern white flour as well as dinner rolls baked with ancient whole einkorn flour – but with different amounts of water – so you can compare the finished product.
If your recipe calls for and egg, and or butter; don’t count these as liquid. Only use 1/3 less of the actual pourable liquid such as water.
If you are grinding your own Einkorn, do not expect it to rise as high as modern white bread. This is true with all whole flour breads.
Because Einkorn has a completely different type of Gluten than modern wheat, it does NOT need to be kneaded very long at all. I knead mine in the mixer on low for 4 minutes.
Tip #4: Making Your Own “White Einkorn Flour”
As you may know, when you mill einkorn berries into flour at your home, you are making what is known as “whole grain einkorn flour”. It tends to be a bit dense, which is great for just about everything, but if you want to bake something lighter, you should use what is commonly called “white einkorn flour”. White flour isn’t the best name for it because true white flour has been bleached.
Our “white flour” has not been bleached or treated in any way so we call it All-Purpose Organic Einkorn flour, and you can buy it from us here, or you can make your own using the instructions below.
To make “White Flour” at home…
After you grind your own whole Einkorn flour, you will want to us use a double sifter (which has two sifters at different sizes on top of each other) and the bran will be held back leaving you a white flour that bakes lighter in color and density. Note: grind your wheat on medium fine to do this.
This
I love this because I don’t have to worry about my white einkorn flour being treated with chemical bleach (yuck!).
White Einkorn flour is great for making cinnamon rolls, dinner rolls, or even for your bread but keep in mind that it is not as healthy as whole Einkorn flour. SAVE that beautiful bran! It’s healthy for you because it adds nutrients and fiber to your diet. You can even add it to the top of your breads.
The pictures below demonstrate the difference in dough made from white flour vs whole einkorn flour vs white einkorn flour.
Tip #5: Softening Kneaded Bread
Add the same amount of white vinegar as yeast, plus powdered milk (double the measurement of vinegar), plus approximately 1/4 cup of potato flakes for every 2 1/2 cups of whole Einkorn flour. So, if you use 2 Tbsp yeast, then you’d use 2 Tbsp. vinegar, 4 Tbsp powdered milk, and the appropriate amount of potato flakes.
Tip #6: Adding Artisan Crust To Your Einkorn Bread
If you want a hard Artisan Bread type crust, bake it in a dutch oven. Make sure you cut slits with a very sharp knife or razor, in the top of the bread so it can vent properly. Or it will choose where to vent itself and be lopsided. Preheat your dutch oven in with the oven as it preheats to 500 degrees. Then drop it to 450 when you put your bread in it. Make sure you place the lid back on while it bakes. Let it bake 30 minutes, then remove the lid. Then bake to desired brownness.
191 thoughts on “Tips For Baking With Einkorn Flour”
I do not understand how to use the sifter. I consider myself fairly intelligent and I did go back and watch the video on Amazon. It also seems to take literally ages to get the flour sifted….what am I missing?
We ordered the sifter which is TERRIBLE. There’s nothing to hold onto and the plastic is cheap and difficult to unscrew, which you have to do with every use. ????
Hello! Im trying to adapt my basic bread recipe using the einkorn I sprout and grind myself. I use my sourdough starter to make bread. My einkorn flour didnt work with my basic recipe which calls for 3-4 cups of hard wheat flour, one cup of water and one cup of starter -which is very much of a liquid- . The dough never formed a ball. After reading this post, I much believe the hydrance level was not adecuate in this recipe if I work with einkorn. Your advise is reduce 1/3 of liquid for what the recipe calls for , but what about the starter I am using which is very liquid, should I have to reduce it as well ? Thank you so much for this post !
My recipe calls for 1/4 Cup starter, 2 cups warm water (100F) stir then add 6 cups ground eincorn wheat berries and 1.5 tsp salt (mix flour and salt before adding to liquid)
Rest 12-15 hours in a bowl with tight lid or plastic wrap (cover with towel)
After dough has doubled in size, turn out onto well floured surface. Flour your dough and fold in thirds. Using your hands cupped around the dough press gently from the bottom into a ball while rotating the dough & incorporating extra flour.
Turn your ball of dough into a strainer lined with a well floured cloche and rest for 30 minutes.
During this time your Dutch oven should be warming full of water and covered in a preheated oven at 500 degrees F.
Turn down the oven after 30 minutes to 450, remove the pot and empty the water. Coat the pot with some coconut oil and wipe out. Carefully transfer your dough to the preheated pot and cook covered at 450 for 40 minutes.
Remove loaf from pan and rest on cooling rack for at least 2 hours.
I will definitely try this bread. Thank you so much!
No need to heat your Dutch oven full of water. Heat it empty, dust the top of the dough that you are going to tip in the pot, with flour just before baking. tip the dough in , slash with a sharp blade or snip with scissors, lid on and bake.
I’ve been baking with a Le Creuset casserole once a week for a year and this method works.
Just ordered my first Einkorn flour and wondering if I use this healthier wheat to make a donut my Grandchildren love. I would like to have a healthier donut, ha ha. It needs to be a sweat dough and I use honey(sugar is sugar) and deep fry them. This time in lard and only a few for a holiday treat. So my question is adding yeast to get some rising. The children participate so it can’t be a long day from start to finish. Any suggestions about the yeast and amounts.
Thanks
Dennis
Either my starter is lousy or I am not doing something right. I am using jovial’s all purpose einkorn flour. Is there a relatively fool proof recipe for sour dough that will produce a relatively fluffy bread? I really like the taste but mine ends up heavier than I want.
I found myself with the obsession with wanting that extremely light weight white sourdough and came to realize many things. I KNOW my sourdough with whole grain einkorn is perfect. And it tastes amazing. I also know I can eat loads of einkorn and I haven’t gained a pound. I never bloat or get gas. I can tolerate the gluten completely. The flavor of einkorn has me hooked. But with the commercialized brain washed brain I have had from the light weight white bread case over North America, I couldn’t help but go back and make a loaf. And you know what….it tasted, (now) like crap! I just can’t go back now. The flavor and taste in Einkorn can’t be beat! I can’t explain it. I even made spelt loaf and was like “meh, this is boring too”. I go back to Einkorn. I can eat lots and create so many things and feel great and I love with the dense bread. I KNOW density is how it always was and was meant to be. We simply got brain washed into liking lightness but never questioned how it got that way. I assure you how it got that way was to the detriment of his entire planet. We need to wrap our heads around nutrition first, earth care and not convenience. I bet your sourdough is awesome. Remember, sourdough made with Einkonr is the ultimate in digestibility. Keep going! To your health!
I just bought a 10 pound bag of einkorn whole grain flour. I want to try using my bread machine. I used the machine a couple times, realized I don’t want to use much wheat flour and put it away for a couple years.
Will einkorn flour work on it? Do I have to add gluten or will it work alone? Adding gluten defeats the purpose of using einkorn. Should I just delete 1/3 of the liquid? I know it won’t fluff up like white flour, but that is not a concern. It just needs to be good!
Hi Toby, I don’t know if you can do it with a bread machine but it’s worth a try, if you’re up for it. I do not recommend adding gluten – it does defeat the purpose. Just turn off/down the kneading so that you limit that as much as possible. Please let us know how it goes for you.
I just made bread with my bread machine as I wasn’t aware of keeping kneading to a minimum. I used the dough cycle and then baked in my oven. I clearly didn’t research, cause I also added flour rather than reducing the liquid. Even though I messed those two things up, I was very pleased with how the bread turned out. It had more of a crumb than when I use modern flour and it didn’t rise as much, but it was still devoured at a family function. Now that I know these two tricks, I will try it again with the suggested methods, but using the bread machine wasn’t a total loss for sure!!
Thanks for all the tips!
hello! I am getting ready to make einchorn bread in my cuisinart bread maker …what recipe did you find was the best for this type of flour? why did you take the dough out and bake in oven and not just keep it in the bread maker? thanks!
Hi Maria, we have never used a breadmaker so we don’t have a recipe for that specifically. There are some that come up if you type it into google. We’d love to hear what you end up doing and how it turned out.
I just tried a cinnamon roll recipe using Einkorn. The only modification I made was to use a little less milk – about 25% less. And I didn’t knead the dough at all – just mixed it to a homogeneous consistency. The dough definitely doesn’t rise like yeast dough made with regular flour. The final cinnamon rolls didn’t quite have the same gluten structure as made with normal flour but they were still very good. The dough didn’t expand the same as regular flour. But the whole family gobbled them up just the same and they’re easier for my stomach to digest than regular flour. I think I’m going to try the bread recipe next.
Steve, look at you! First you post a question and then your next post tells us you just went for it anyway. Way to go! You are right on about decreasing the liquid. Also, not sure if you did, but try to keep the kneading to a minimum. We’ll be working on having more information about this kind of thing very soon! Thank you for paving the way!
Great website. Any tips or recipes for making cinnamon rolls with extracted einkorn flour? I’ve only used it a couple times for cookies and pancakes. This will be my first try with yeast bread. thanks