I’ve long been attracted to homestead-y activities like bread baking (thanks to Rosemary Olive Oil Bread for beginners). Others on the list: Gardening. Canning. Raising chickens. Other industrious, crafty things. The canning and the chickens have never come to pass. I blame city regulations and a general lack of motivation. Thanks to Crock Pot Bread, however, a homemade loaf of fluffy, honey whole wheat bread is never more than a few cups of flour away.
Homemade Bread that ANYONE (Yes, That Means YOU!) Can Make
If you’ve been nervous to try baking homemade bread or consider it only something for serious, accomplished home bakers (or people with too much time on their hands), Crock Pot Bread will prove you wrong. (No Knead Focaccia will too!) This whole grain crock pot bread recipe is essentially foolproof. Further, as anyone who has ever made homemade bread will tell you, there is no such thing as subpar homemade bread. Your homemade bread on its worst day will far outshine anything that comes from the store in a plastic sleeve. Baking bread from scratch is also deeply satisfying. Biting into a warm, butter-smeared slice of bread you’ve knit together from start to finish doesn’t just taste better. It feels better. While I experience a connection to food whenever I cook from scratch, homemade bread is special. It nourishes more deeply than I can describe, more than other recipes. Please make this Crock Pot Bread just so you can experience the connection too.
How To Bake Bread in a Slow Cooker
I read about the idea of baking bread in the slow cooker years ago, and it’s been tangled in the back of my mind since. With our house heating up for the summer, now seemed like the perfect time to leave the oven off and give Crock Pot Bread a try. While using an oven to make bread does have some benefits over the slow cooker, the largest being that the cook time is more certain, the oven forms a better outside “crust,” and the bread is more puffed and domed, overall, I was really pleased with how baking bread in the crock pot turned out. Despite not being as tall as oven baked bread, the texture of the bread was still soft and fluffy, the loaf sliced nicely once cooled, and it made some of the best toast I’ve eaten in ages. Crock Pot Bread also has its own advantages. My favorite: you don’t need to wait for the dough to rise prior to shaping and baking the loaf. With most homemade bread recipes, you mix the dough, let it rise for about an hour in the bowl unshaped, then shape it and let rise a second time prior to baking. Crock Pot Bread skips the fuss. As the slow cooker heats, the dough will complete all of its necessary rising. All you do is mix, shape, and bake. You can leave the bread in a free form boule-style loaf as I did. If you prefer a more structured shape like classic sandwich bread, as long as your slow cooker is large enough, you can actually still put the dough in a loaf pan, then place the loaf pan directly inside of the slow cooker and bake the bread that way. Crock Pot Bread does take some trial and error.
Bread is done when it reaches an internal temperature of approximately 200 degrees F, which is conveniently the max temperature most slow cookers reach when set to HIGH.Depending upon how quickly your slow cooker warms, and its exact HIGH temperature, you will see some variation in the cook time.Your best bet is to treat your first loaf as a tasty experiment. Once you know how long your specific slow cooker needs to bake it, you won’t need to watch future loaves as closely to tell when the bread done.
The easiest way to tell when a loaf of bread has finished baking is to take its internal temperature with an inexpensive digital instant read thermometer like this one. When the center of the bread hits 190-200 degrees F, it’s good to go.
The recipe I’ve included here is for a simple whole wheat crock pot bread. From what I’ve read, however, you can make any bread recipe in the crock pot. If you have your heart set on a no knead crock pot bread, crock pot cheese bread, slow cooker sourdough bread, or another, feel free to try this method. Prepare your dough up to the point of its first rise, then follow the directions I’ve included here.
More Crockpot Recipes for Breakfast
Don’t miss my full list of the Best Crock Pot Recipes for Any Meal! It includes other slow cooker breakfast favorites like Slow Cooker Steel Cut Oats , Crock Pot Granola, Crockpot Breakfast Casserole, and more.
