SLOW COOKER BREAD | SLOW COOKER BREAD – The Love Notes Blog

Did you know you can make bread in your slow cooker?! I stumbled on this website a couple days ago & when I saw it I knew I HAD to try because I’ve been obsessed with slow cooker meals this month. We’ve all been a little under the weather this week, so I figured this would go perfect with some homemade chicken noodle soup. It did. Holy moly. The loaf was gone in no time at all!

The best part was how easy it was to make! You just mix the ingredients, let it sit for 2 hours & put it in the slow cooker for about an hour. No kneading, no nothing! The recipe makes FOUR 1 pound loaves, so you store the dough you don’t use in the refrigerator (they will last for up to 2 weeks) & then you can pull it out when you are ready to use it.

I did the quick, no knead dough recipe found here from Artisanbreadinfive.com which I’ve rewritten for you below. You might want to check out the first website I listed above to see how she did it, because I did things a little different. I wanted to use my mixer, so I did not put my ingredients into a container with a lid, I used my mixing bowl & transferred them later. This creates an extra step, but I knew I wanted to separate my dough into smaller portions anyway so it worked for me.

What I used:

  • 3 cups lukewarm water. It says you can use cold water but it will take longer for the dough to rise (I’m not sure how much longer). Just don’t use hot water because it could kill the yeast!
  • 1 tablespoon granulated yeast. I used active dry, but you can use instant, quick, rapid rise, bread machine or fresh cake yeast. If you use fresh cake yeast, use 1.3 oz.
  • 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons salt
  • 6 1/2 cups all- purpose flour. I actually used bread flour because I happened to have some in my pantry. If you use bread flour, add 1/3 cup. Find out more about using different flours here.
  • Parchment paper
  • Food scale (optional!)

What I did:

  • Mix together water, salt & yeast in a large bowl.
  • Measure out the flour in another bowl & pour it into the water/salt/yeast all at once.
  • The website says to stir with a spoon, but who has muscles/time for that? I put mine in my mixer & it turned out great 😉 I didn’t think to take pictures until the dough had risen, whoops.
  • I covered the bowl loosely with plastic wrap. You want the gas from the yeast to escape, so make sure it isn’t airtight.
  • Wait 2 hours to find your dough much larger than you left it. Mine was almost overflowing, haha.
  •  If you used a mixer like me, pull out all the dough. It should be really stretchy!
  • I put mine on a cutting board & cut off a 1 lb section. I used a food scale, but if you don’t have one just cut off what you think is 1/4 of your dough. 
  • Put your dough on parchment paper inside your slow cooker & set the timer for 45 minutes. It should take closer to an hour but since all slow cookers are different just keep an eye on it.
  • While it was cooking, I went ahead & portioned out the rest of the dough & put them in 3 airtight containers.
  • This is what it looked like after 45 minutes. It was a little crude & gummy still so I left it in for another 15 minutes, checking every 5 minutes.
  • This step is optional but I wanted a nice golden crust, so I put the dough (minus the parchment paper) on a pizza stone & put it in the oven on “broil” for about 4 minutes. The lighting is weird in this photo, but the bread came out nice & brown!

This recipe was so easy, you guys NEED to try it!!! Thanks for stopping by!