I tried these yesterday with and without the xanthan gum, and my results were pretty good. This is a nice recipe, and I like how the bun held together. These would be great for me to carry to work in my purse.

I did half the batter with 1/8 tsp xanthan and the other half without. Since I don't have a bun pan, I tried 2 on a cookie sheet, 2 in my Texas muffin pan, and 2 in the dash waffle maker.

I got opposite results in the muffin pan compared to the cookie sheet. In the pan, the xanthan made the buns shrivel up like yours. But on the cookie sheet, it was the xanthan gum bun that rose better while the no-xanthan one spread out into a "flatbread". I'm going to assume it's because the xanthan significantly thickened the batter, so it held together long enough to form a nicer, rounder bun.

Don't do them in the waffle maker. Just don't. They poofed up into a giant bubbly waffle, then collapsed, and the inside didn't seem to cook properly. They seem kind of dry and icky. I'll salvage them and use them for dunking in soup or chili.

I'll come back and edit this after I try them all.

Minor changes/notes:
- I had no hemp or nutritional yeast, so I skipped it.
- My psyllium was already ground into a powder, so used a nutrition calculator to find the equivalent of whole husks (that's what I assume you used, since you put it in the grinder?) and 3 Tbsp whole = 1.5 Tbsp ground.
- I used 1.5 packet of Splenda.