Think you couldn't love your slow cooker more? Well, it turns out you can use this appliance to proof bread dough. Fill your slow cooker halfway with water and set to the low setting (which will heat the water to about 200ºF). Put the lid on upside down, lay a dishtowel on top, then set your bowl of dough on top.
Choose the best size and shape slow cooker for baking. For cakes and pies, I recommend a 5- or 6-quart round slow cooker. You can fit a 1-quart round baking dish with a lid, as well as a 2-quart round baking dish with a lid, into your 5- or 6-quart round slow cooker.
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Plain flours are big on flavour and bake into great tasting breads. The rise might be a little less impressive than with a bread flour, but the real wheat taste will be there.
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Temperature. Standard dough left to rise at room temperature typically takes between two and four hours, or until the dough has doubled in size. If left for 12 hours at room temperature, this rise can slightly deflate, though it will still remain leavened.
Metal cake tins can be used in your slow cooker.
You can also elevate the cake tin off the bottom of the slow cooker to allow heat to circulate evenly around your cake. This can be achieved by resting the cake tin on a metal trivet, on metal egg rings or even on scrunched up balls of aluminum foil.
Lining the inside of your slow cooker with tin foil will not only make it easier to clean, but will also help the food cook more evenly, food blogger Lynn of Lynn's Kitchen Adventures explains. In addition to lining the pot with foil, you could also wrap food in foil.
You will often see in recipes that people will state to lay a tea towel (the cloth you dry your dishes with) between the inner slow cooker bowl top and the lid of the slow cooker (see photo below). This is to absorb condensation and stop it from dripping down into the dish inside.
Slow cookers are designed to be left to cook for long periods of time, so the truth is that it's entirely safe to leave your slow cooker on overnight, if you're out the house or if you're at work all day, as long as you follow all the directions and the manufacturer's instructions.
Potatoes and carrots will cook best in liquid. Without liquid they'll still cook but it will take longer. You can adjust the amount of time they take to cook by cutting them into smaller chucks. Smaller chunks will cook faster.
As with a lot of cooking appliances, the biggest difference comes from the distribution of heat. The pot of the slow cooker usually sits on a base that houses the heating element on the bottom, while Crockpots have their pots inside of a container (or crock) and get heating from all sides.
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