hi folks well my oven broke down last week and we're getting our kitchen renovated this week so
I wasn't in a hurry to repair the old oven so I was looking for other ways to make my sourdough
bread and I can't believe I haven't tried this out before but you can bake your sourdough bread
in a slow cooker and this is how I did it so I just started with a basic whole-wheat sourdough
dough this one was one that I mixed in my stand mixer in the morning and bulk fermented through
the day so this is at the end of the bulk fermentation period this is a 70% hydration
dough which is a little bit less water in this dough than I would normally do but I find that
that has worked the best with the slow cooker the first loaf I made in the slow cooker was
really a lot wetter very high hydration and it didn't work as well because I had chia seeds in
it and it was a bit gummy so this this one turned out really good so basically with this method it
is so easy you just shape your dough put it into the slow cooker cold and then turn it on and bake
it so it proofs and bakes the dough all in one step so I'm just giving this so a really basic
shaping and I'm just using some parchment paper or some non-stick baking paper to to put the to
use to put the bread on inside the slow cooker you could also grease the inside of your slow
cooker and you know use cooking spray or whatever kind of greasing method you normally do for bread
loaves in a pan or cakes but I'm just using the non-stick baking paper in this instance I'm just
flattening out those creases to stop there the big crease is putting dents into my final loaf
I think it looks nicer if you flatten those out so this local rig is completely cold you just put the
bread in straight after shaping no need to proof it at all and put it into your slow cooker get it
all set up and it's a really easy method you just basically turn it on and leave it for a few hours
so you've turned your cooker on too high that's really important you need that high heat so just
straight from cold turn it straight on to high and then leave it this is after one hour you can
see the bread has risen a bit there's a bit of steam forming around the inside of the the lid
at this point I decided to put a cloth cover over there over the dough underneath the lid I learnt
this trick from a blog post I read somewhere and it's a really good way to catch the steam
that comes off up off the loaf a tweet and so the cloth collects the steam and stops it prevents it
from running down back into the cooker and making your loaf damp so this is the bread after two and
a half hours and it's done so your slow cooker might take a bit longer or a bit less amount of
time on high but mine takes about two and a half hours this is a fairly small cooker it fits this
bread really well and what you're looking out for when your bread is done I actually did a skewer
test like you would with the cakes I put a skewer into the loaf and make sure it came out clean but
I also look for those brown edges you can see see how the bottom and the sides are I've got a nice
brown color to them that's an indication that it's done as well I also put this bread under the grill
for five or ten minutes so the broiler and that just Browns the top a little bit you don't have
to brown the top but I think it makes it look a little bit nicer completely optional and step
though so there's the bread done amazingly easy I can't believe I didn't try this years ago it's a
really good option if you don't have an oven but you'd still like to make bread or if your oven
breaks down and you've got a slow cooker you can you can continue to make your bread quite
easily and here's the finished loaf I was going to say something about the flavor of this loaf
the flavor is great the internal structure and flavor and texture is really really good it is
remember it is a hundred percent whole wheat loaf so it's denser than a refined flour loaf but the
crust flavor isn't as good as a as a loaf that's baked in the oven and that's because you don't get
the complete caramelization of the crust with ads which adds a lot of flavor to a loaf of bread but
you know if you want your bread done and it's it's easy and you don't have an oven then this
is a great way to do it I wanted to show you these two these are this is a rye loaf that I
made using this method and it turned out really really well as well this was a hundred percent
hydration ride because that's how I like to make them it worked out really really well thanks for
watching everyone I hope you play around with this and try it out yourself I'm sure you'll enjoy it