Another thing I just thought of is that if you used the convection heat setting on your oven, that can make the top of the bread darker.
I did not use the convection setting but had just switched the oven over from the convection bake setting from roasting some veggies not sure that should have effected the result.
I’m not sure, but my hunch is that it wouldn’t have much impact.
- 500g wholegrain einkorn flour
- 190g water
- 145g plain yoghurt
- 15g honey
- 10g fennel seeds
- 8g salt
- 100g mature einkorn starter @ 100% hydration
Thank you Melissa for the inspiration. When I looked up online how to substitute the milk for yoghurt for the most part the advice was just do a straight swap weight for weight as long as its a liquid yoghurt. So keeping the final dough at 70% hydration (excluding the starter) I did one small yoghurt pot (145g) + 3% of the flour for honey and made up the rest with water. Mixed it all up into a no knead dough, covered and bulk fermented till ready which was about 6 hours (give or take). With wet hands, and keeping it in the mixing bowl, I folded the dough into a ball, picked it up and moulded it into a log then placed it into a prepared Pullman loaf pan. Final proofed till ready which was about 1.5 hours ish.
Not too different to my own lean version I settled on a few years ago. I also found that 70% hydration was just right even for a wholegrain version and 10% starter with a long all night ferment.
Its cooling and won’t be cutting into it for a day or two but looks grand and lovely aroma.
Ooh that’s gorgeous!
1 Like
These recipes are interesting, but not of equal hydration.
The first is hydrated at ~72% and the enriched version is only ~65% due to the differences between water and milk. The milk only supplies 221g of moisture, not the 260g shown for the quantity of milk. This is because only 85% of the weight of milk is actually water.
I have gotten some bad surprises assuming that they are equivalent. They are not.
First of all one can have two recipes for 100% bread flour sourdough with the same amount of starter and they will work with different hydration. Hydration is not set in stone. There will be a range and this is where personal preference will come into play.
Secondly, although technically milk has so much water + fat etc. And even honey will have some water in it. It’s very different when working with dough rather than numbers on a spreadsheet. While these added ingredients which make it enriched will add water and fat one has to appreciate that your dough might feel more hydrated even though technically it might be less. It’s all to do with how the dough behaves. The fat will interfere with gluten formation and might make it feel different.
And finally, when it comes to recipes one must always take into account for discrepancies for the flour being used. This was Melissa’s experience, which she produced some mighty fine loaves, but you must adjust for the flour you’re using. One must even take into account the humidity of where you live affecting the flours absorbancy. Hydration might need to be tweaked here and there when following bread recipes.
I’ve tried them and they work very well. Hope this helps and you have the same success. Continue with the tweaks. Einkorn is delicious and very healthy to-boot.
This is delicious! Thank you for posting this recipe. I had never used einkorn flour before and found some at a local mill. I made the lean version, and mine had a tiny bit of bread flour because I built my einkorn leaven with 25g of my bread flour starter. My attempt to score the loaf was unsuccessful, but that didn’t seem to matter.
Looks great! Scoring pan loaves is always iffy and especially the ancient wheat ones 
In my opinion, it’s still not bad. In extreme cases, this bread causes appetite. If it’s not perfect, then it’s okay to try a new recipe for the first time.
Hi, I was wondering if it is possible to make the crust softer? Can I leave the lid on and just bake for a full hour? My family finds the crust to be too hard. Other than that, I am in love with this bread! Thank you so much for this recipe!
Keeping the bread covered should work to soften the crust.
Some other things you can do are:
make sure you’re not using a convection setting during the uncovered time
after the bread comes out of the oven, brush the crust with butter or oil
store the loaf in a plastic bag after it has cooled down (wash and reuse if you want : )
Ah, thank you. I will try that 