Go Back
+ servings
Save This Recipe Form

Want to save this recipe?

Enter your email below & we'll send it straight to your inbox. Plus you’ll get more great recipes and tips from us each week!

einkorn sourdough bread on white cutting board

5-Ingredient Einkorn Sourdough Bread

This healthy loaf of homemade einkorn sourdough is full of deep, rich flavor and has a golden brown crust. It's absolutely perfect for toast, with smaller holes and soft crumb. The tang from the natural fermentation and sourdough starter is lovely, too!
Author: Amanda Paa
Yield: 1 loaf
Prep Time :30 minutes
Cook Time :45 minutes
Additional Time :10 hours

Ingredients

Instructions 

  • Before beginning, it will be helpful to note that the dough will be stickier than normal because of the einkorn flour, but it will come together – you just have to trust!
  • Add starter and water to a bowl. Whisk thoroughly until combined, with a fork. Add flours, and mix together first with the fork to start to incorporate, then with your hands until a shaggy dough is formed, and the bits of flour left just disappear. Sprinkle the salt on top and do not mix in, just leave it on top. Cover with a damp cloth.
  • Autolyse: let dough sit for one hour, covered and undisturbed.
  • Bulk ferment: Now you will knead the salt that is sitting on top, aggressively working the dough for about 3 minutes. There is no precise way to do this, just think of working the dough through your hands and up against the bowl, push and pull. You will start to feel the dough relax a bit around 2 minutes. Then leave the dough alone, covered, for 30 minutes. This counts as what would be your first set of stretch and folds.
  • After those 30 minutes pass, perform a set of stretch and folds. Repeat the 30 minute rest + stretch and fold, 2 more times.
  • Now you will let the dough sit, undisturbed and covered with a damp cloth to finish its bulk fermentation. The temperature in my home is 72 degrees F. My dough was finished with the bulk ferment in 5 hours, starting with my first set of stretch and folds at 3pm, and it finished bulking at 8pm. If the temperature in your home is above 72, the dough will take less time to rise, vice versa. You will know it is finished with its bulk ferment when the dough is slightly short of doubled, is smooth and puffy on top, with a few bubbles. It will not be as jiggly as some sourdough you’ve made before.
  • At this point, lightly dust your work surface with flour. Put dough onto the work surface, and pre-shape. Then let sit for 15 minutes on your work surface.
  • Then shape your dough, using this method as a guide.
  • Place dough into your rice flour dusted banneton seam side up. (Optional, you can wait 15 minutes after placing it in banneton, and pinch the perimeters of the dough into the center to hold the shape even more, called stitching.)
  • The dough will now go through its final rise. You can do the final rise overnight in the refrigerator, with the banneton placed inside a plastic shopping bag or covered with a shower cap. You need this for holding moisture in. Or you can do the final on the counter, which will take about 1 1/2 hours at 70 degrees F for the dough to puff up and be jiggly. It will not double. Use this video as a guide to know when the proofing is done.
  • Time to bake. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees F, with your dutch oven preheating inside the oven. When the oven is preheated, flip your dough out gently onto parchment paper and score your dough. If you did the final rise in the refrigerator, take it straight from fridge to scoring. You should score it cold, and DO NOT need to let it come to room temp.
  • Then put dough into the dutch oven on the parchment, and put cover on. Slide dutch oven in. Bake for 20 minutes, then remove cover.
  • Turn heat down to 430 degrees F, and bake for 25 more minutes, until crust is golden brown and crackly. Remove from oven, and remove bread from dutch oven and place onto a cooling rack. (**Einkorn bread does not have as high of a rise as sourdough made with other flours. Don't be disappointed, this is just the nature of it and the flavor is incredbile, and what this bread is all about!)

Notes

New to sourdough baking? You’ll need an active sourdough starter! I ship my carefully maintained, 13+ year old organic starter to anyone in the world!  You can ORDER it here.