Skip to main content

Monday Morning in the Kitchen: Attempting Crockpot Bread, Part I

I feel guilty when I buy bread at the store.  I know I could make bread for less cost, and I could control the ingredients.  Fresh bread smells wonderful and tastes great.  The major downside to baking bread here in the summer is the heat.  I just don't feel like turning on an oven when it is nearly or already in the triple-digits outside.  Some day I might just invest in a solar oven, but until then, I want to try the next-best thing:  bread in a crock pot!

(Of course, you could always use a bread machine, too.)

The first time I tried to bake bread in the crock pot, the loaf rose up, up, up and cascaded in a waterfall pattern over the side of the bread pan.


Not exactly appetizing.  So, for my second attempt I cut the recipe in half.  The bread stayed nicely in its pan; in fact, it collapsed into itself.



Not exactly the look I was going for. So, now I am on a mission to adapt my tried-and-true recipe so that I can successfully make it in the crockpot. 

What I'm going to attempt next:  Use freshly-ground wheat flour instead of white.  (I almost always use wheat; I was trying to save time today.) Use the vital wheat gluten and dough enhancer the original recipe called for.  (I had left them out in an attempt to not use "unusual" ingredients. What was I thinking by eliminating a "vital" ingredient?!)

Any bakers out there care to comment on other things to try?

I had envisioned this post much differently than it turned out.  Next week I will post "Attempting Crockpot Bread, Part 2", and with any luck, I will have a recipe to accompany the post. 


Thanks for a family heritage of bread-bakers.(And as far as I know, all their loaves were perfect.)

Comments

  1. Thanks Kristi for showing the not so beautiful results of your first attempts. This stuff happens to me too. I didn't know you could bake bread in the crock pot so I'm really interested to see how this ultimately turns out.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is something I have really been wanting to try because of the heat as well. I will learn through you.... LOL. Actually the bread, even though it fell into itself, looks so yummy! I LOVE homemade bread!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Try this- perfect every time but not a crock pot recipe. You have to read the comments because that is where the recipe is.

    http://movingontothepast.blogspot.com/2011/03/our-snowy-day-bread.html

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Conversations are so much nicer when more than one person does the talking. :-) Please leave a comment and let me know your thoughts; I'd love to hear from you!

Popular posts from this blog

Ten Things of Thankful: Autumn Edition

It's autumn time, one of my favorite times of year.  I just couldn't leave this weekend as a one-post weekend.  

Ten Things of Thankful: Last Two Weeks

  Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park, as viewed from an overlook I apologize for not commenting on your blog posts this past week; John and I took a vacation to Yellowstone National Park, leaving behind our computers and, to a large extent, cell phone service. We escaped the outside world and just spent time in nature. Though we have friends near Yellowstone (who we love to visit) we made this trip just about us, so please forgive us if we were nearby and didn't stop by. The crowds were minimal (though we did mask up whenever we passed someone on the trails) and we spent our days hiking, taking photos, and watching geysers erupt. Today, we are back home and back to work, and, in the case of my computer, back to old shenanigans like not letting me import my photos. (I was able to add the above photo by using blogger on my phone, but that isn't my preferred method.) I want to write about Yellowstone and have photos I want to share, but will leave that for another...

Monday Mentions: Equate Crutches

Have you ever needed crutches? I hadn't, until a week ago.  I'm pretty sure I strained a muscle while running a half-marathon.  (That sounds kind of cool, doesn't it? I'm not actually that cool; the last time I strained a muscle it was from carrying too many shopping bags at once.) In any case, I found myself in need of some crutches. I sent my husband to the store to get some. Photo: A pair of crutches leans against a wall  Not that crutches are all that complex, but because I hadn't used any before, I wondered if I could figure out how to adjust them to fit me properly. I shouldn't have worried. John came home from Walmart with their generic store brand of crutches, complete with instructions. First, I needed to take out a long bolt that went through the hand grip. Then I needed to find my height range, push down two metal pieces, and slide the crutches until the little metal pieces came up in the hole near my height range. (Having two people for this...