Complete Protein Einkorn Sourdough Bread

Introduction

This 5 ingredient recipe combines whole grain einkorn with navy bean to make a satisfying sourdough bread.

It’s a great option to help you get more complete protein, especially when you are plant based.

The bread has a mellow, cheesy flavor that will pair well with your savory topping of choice.

Recipe Inspiration

Einkorn is the oldest cultivated ancestor of modern wheat as detailed in the previous post, Cooking with Einkorn 101,

It therefore seemed appropriate to make an einkorn recipe with an ancient history.

Grains and beans have been combined as far back as biblical times to make bread.

For example, NIV Ezekiel 4:9 states:

“Take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt; put them in a storage jar and use them to make bread for yourself.”

Often, recipes such as Indian dosas, call for fermenting the whole grain and then wet milling the fermented product.

Recently, Paul Lebeau, a fellow whole grain enthusiast and stone milling proponent from Mockmill, shared his recipe for making a 75% whole wheat / 25% other flour sourdough sandwich loaf.

To quote Paul, the other flour can be:

“rye, barley, spelt, einkorn, emmer, even corn (maize). It may be millet (any variety), buckwheat, amaranth, quinoa, bean flour, pea flour, mockmilled dried berries, infused (with seeds, herbs, spices) flours, milled and dried fruits, vegetables, grass seed, etc. Use your imagination!”

Feel free to contact Paul directly for his original recipe as he is always glad to share his passion for bread.

I had never tried fermenting bean flours before.

Therefore, I decided to use Paul Lebeau’s recipe as starting point for modifying my simple goto 100% whole wheat sourdough loaf.

To keep the recipe as simple as possible, I chose to just add navy beans which are pantry staples but, as described by Paul Lebeau, the variations are practically endless.

I came across a few challenges while testing the recipe which I’ve organized in the notes below.

Recipe Tips and Notes

Navy Bean Flour

Navy beans are mild flavored which makes them a good choice for adults and children who are not used to whole grain breads. 

While navy beans can commonly be found in your local supermarket or online at Amazon, Azure Standard or Country Life Natural Foods, the flour is not so easy to source.

You can easily mill your own navy bean flour at home in various ways.

You will achieve the finest flour using a micronizer mill set to the widest opening.

If you use a stone mill, I would recommend milling in two steps.  For step 1, mill at the coarsest setting.  Then for step 2 mill at a finer setting. 

Open up your stone mill to clean the stones thoroughly as the skins from the navy beans may get stuck.

You can grind the beans in a high speed blender or a spice mill as well.

Whether using a stone mill, a high speed blender or a spice grinder, I recommend sifting the bean flour to remove coarser pieces.

Einkorn flour

Whole grain einkorn flour is much easier to source than navy been flour. 

The flour is available on Amazon, Azure Standard, Country Life Natural Foods.

If you are looking to buy einkorn berries and/or flour in bulk from the state nearest to you to minimize shipping costs, this post on Best Places to Buy Whole Grains in 2023 includes a free PDF download with 25 online sources of einkorn listed by state.

When starting with einkorn berries, you can use any milling technique discussed in this post to mill the berries.

Einkorn Dough

You will find that einkorn flour makes a very sticky dough.

Because the gluten in einkorn is different from modern wheat, the flour is not as elastic as modern wheat flour.

Wetting your hands before handling the dough helps.

Refrigerating the dough for the bulk fermentation step makes it less sticky when shaping into the final loaf.

Choice of Loaf Pans

While it is possible to make a freeform loaf with sifted einkorn, for whole grain einkorn, you are likely to have more success using loaf pans.

I trialed various versions of the recipe using two different loaf pans.

The larger loaf pan is an inexpensive Walmart loaf pan I bought years ago.

I’ve been a fan of using it to make a poor man’s Dutch oven as discussed in this post.

However, this 9 x 5 loaf pan is too wide for a lower gluten flour combination.

I learned this the hard way experimenting with einkorn dough.

You are likely to achieve a flatter loaf with the wider loaf pan.

The bread will still taste delicious, the slices may just not be the shape you prefer for making sandwiches.

When I trialed several variants of einkorn bread using my narrower mini loaf pan, those breads came out looking great.

Narrower loaf pans are better suited for lower gluten grains such as einkorn or rye.

Therefore I recommend using full sized narrow loaf pans or the mini loaf pan pictured above.

If you use the mini loaf pan, the recipe can be divided in half.

Stretch and Fold

There are a number of stretch and fold techniques, some done with the dough in a bowl, some done with the dough on a flat surface.

For this recipe, stretch and fold is done in the bowl with the help of a dough scrapper.

To stretch and fold, it is helpful to imagine the dough relative to North, South, East and West positions.

You will want to stretch upwards the part of the dough that is on the north side.

Then flatten the north facing piece towards the center of the dough ball as indicated by the arrow.

Then you will want to rotate your bowl a quarter turn to the east.

Proceed to stretch and fold the new side that is in the North position.

One stretch and fold cycle will have turned all four sides once.

Conclusion

Einkorn is extremely nutritious and is worth including in your rotation of grains.

It is my hope that the tips provided will give you a delicious baking experience!