Einkorn Sourdough Hamburger (or Sandwich) Buns

My kids love taking sandwiches on buns to school and we eat a lot of burgers so this is a recipe I have been wanting to try for a long time. Click on this link, littlespoonfarm.com, for the original recipe and to use all purpose flour. I substituted AP Einkorn flour, which needed a lot less water. My kids liked them in their lunches and we loved them with our burgers. They are a little sweet so they taste good warm with butter too! As always, with homemade, the texture is different and more dense than store bought, but we like it that way. I hope you enjoy!

Einkorn Sourdough Burger Buns (Makes 12 Buns)

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup or 100 grams active sourdough starter
• 720 grams All-Purpose Einkorn Flour plus some for dusting
• 300 grams non-chlorinated water
• 3 tablespoons (60 grams) honey
• 3 teaspoons (20 grams) course Celtic sea salt (or any course sea salt)
• Optionals: 1 egg and 1 tablespoon water for egg wash and sesame seeds or poppy seeds for topping

Directions

Add active sourdough starter and water to a straight sided vessel (so you can clearly measure when dough is doubled) and using a kitchen scale. Mix well.

Add honey and mix well.

Add 720 grams of flour and salt and mix well with a spoon or rubber spatula. You may need to use floured hands too. This will be a wet, shaggy dough.

Let sit for an hour.

After an hour, dust your hands and the dough with flour and stretch and fold your dough. Let sit for 15-30 minutes and then repeat. Repeat stretch and fold process a total of 4 times.

After 4 stretch and folds, let dough sit overnight or for 8-10 hours in your straight sided vessel, until dough has doubled in size. Or, at this point, you can also refrigerate dough for up to 24 hours, until time permits to proceed with the baking schedule.

Once doubled, remove dough from the bowl or vessel and place on a floured surface. You should be able to work with it with floured hands. If not, sprinkle with more flour.

Divide dough in half using a bench scraper or a sharp bread knife. Then, divide each half into 6ths, for a total of 12 buns.

With floured hands, roll each section of dough into a ball and then fold it under and pulling and pinching it together on the bottom. Place each one seem side down and let rest on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

Cover with a light weight towel and let buns rise for about 2 hours. If you refrigerated your dough before this step and it’s cold, you will want to let this dough rise a little longer.

If using egg wash, mix egg and 1 tablespoon water in a small bowl, and then brush on buns. Add toppings now if desired. I skipped these steps and they still tasted great, but I prefer it with the egg wash and sesame seeds.

Bake on parchment lined cookie sheet for 20-25 minutes in a 375 degree oven. Check at the 20 minute mark in case oven temps vary. My last batch took about 20 minutes.

Let cool before slicing and eating.

These freeze well too! Separate with parchment paper and store in a freezer safe ziplock bag.

Enjoy!