Crock bread falls flat, twice

This Spring, I saw a really intriguing link on my Facebook feed that said "You can cook Bread in your Crock Pot! - It takes less time than the oven because the rising time is included in the Baking."  Despite the weird capitalization, I was intrigued!

Not my slow-cooker bread

I did a quick web search for "slow cooker bread" since that Facebook page did not include the URL from which the pictures originated (a huge peeve of mine). Thankfully, the blog was easy to find, and you can read the original post here. She uses an artisan bread, which I cook regularly, so I was ready to go.

According to the directions, you place ~1 lb. of dough in your crock pot on parchment and turn it on high. In one hour, you have delicious bread! 

That sounds so simple.....

Here is my dough, ready to go, in my 8-quart slow cooker. I added the lid and turned it to high.

One hour later: the dough flattened (instead of rising) and was gummy and raw. The lid was beginning to take on a lot of moisture, so I cracked it a bit, so as not to soak the loaf. I held out hope.

Two hours later: still not done. I finally pulled it out around the 3-hour mark, and the results were...flat. Here you can see the crock loaf (l) next to one baked in the oven (r).

Despite these bad results, I remained undeterred. Perhaps the 8-quart slow cooker was too big or too hot. I read the comments on the original blog post and decided to try my 1-quart crock instead. A crock uses a lot less energy than an oven, plus no hot kitchen in summer, right? I had to give it another go.

Dough ready to go in my 1-quart crock. Fingers crossed.

Once again, it took several hours to achieve anything approximating "done."
While it did not flatten, due to lack of room in the crock, there was no rising.
Here, the "finished loaf" at 2-ish hours is not terribly appetizing.

Second crock loaf (l) is the same height as oven-baked (r), but horridly doughy and dense
due to lack of rise.  The oven loaf spreads a bit, then rises, and has a wonderful texture. I even put the top of the crock-"baked" loaf under the broiler, so it had an even color, but it tasted awful anyway.

 After having zero rise on the second loaf, I decided this method is not for me, unless I get helpful feedback in the comments. The artisan bread takes at most one hour, and I'd rather fire up the oven for a consistent, successful result loved by the whole family than keep trying at the crock.

If you get different results, let me know. If you're only moderately interested in slow-cooker bread, because you want to try something new, I recommend trying instead the Soft 100% Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls from An Oregon Cottage. They are soft and tasty...and I made them without a stand mixer, several times, with consistent, delicious results!

Inside My Fridge - June 1, 2013

Roasted marinated mushrooms, pear custard bars (using up the giant block of cream cheese on the bottom shelf), pears, grapes, avocados, various fruits, giant bag of broccoli, water kefir (delish!). After taking this picture, I realized the only meat is some pepperoni in the cheese drawer. Interesting. We have plenty in the freezer, I promise, though less than I used to store.