Posts Tagged ‘Slow Cooker’

Molten Chocolate Cake in a Slow Cooker

Saturday, February 6th, 2010

chCakeCrockThis cake is very similar to a chocolate soufflé, only it’s made in a slow cooker! If your slow cooker is hard to clean, you may want to cook this in an oven-proof container (just make sure it fits before hand).

Molten Chocolate Cake is something I will make again, and again. I should just be sure to make it when we have guests over so my husband and I don’t eat the whole thing ourselves. Oops.

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
4 tablespoons butter
3 ounces semi-sweet chocolate (or 1/3 cup chocolate chips)
1 cup brown sugar
3 tablespoons plus 1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup milk
1 egg, beaten
1/3 cup sugar
1 cup hot water

Method

  • Grease the inside of a 2.5- to 5-quart slow cooker with butter (or oil).
  • Mix together the flour and baking powder in a large bowl and set aside.
  • Melt the butter and chocolate. Using a microwave, heat for 30 seconds at a time or use a double boiler to melt chocolate. Once melted, mix well.
  • To the butter/chocolate mixture, add brown sugar, 3 tablespoons of cocoa, vanilla extract, almond extract, salt, milk and egg.
  • Add mixture to the flour and combine until well mixed.
  • Pour the batter into the prepared slow cooker. Make sure to spread it evenly.
  • In a medium bowl, whisk together the sugar, 1/3 cup of cocoa and hot water. Mix until the sugar is dissolved.
  • Pour the mixture over the batter in the slow cooker. This is the good gooey part.
  • Cover and cook on high for 1 to 2 hours (if you are using a smaller cooker, the time will be closer to 2 hours).
  • It will be done when the cake starts to pull away from the sides. The cake should be moist, with pockets of molten chocolate (yum).
  • When it’s done, turn off the power and remove the lid. Let it cool for 15 minutes. Scoop out and serve it in bowls.

It is best served warm. Serves six to eight.

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Whole Wheat Bread in a Slow Cooker

Saturday, February 6th, 2010

My sister gave me a slow cooker (aka crock pot) a couple of years ago. She uses hers all the time. She is a very organized person and will whip something up before she heads to work and come home to a ready-to-go one-dish dinner. I’m not that organized in the morning and since we don’t have the counter space, mine is stored in the back of a cabinet and I often forget about it. This week, I pulled it out.

I have made various soups and casserole-type dishes in mine, but I wanted something new. While searching for recipes, I came across a couple things that I would have never thought you could make in a slow cooker — bread and cakes. How cool is that?

I make bread all of the time and I was excited to see how fast and simple the slow-cooker bread was. It didn’t have the delicious crust that I get with
my standard recipe, but it is great for sandwich bread.

If you want to see all of the crazy things you can cook in your slow cooker, check out A Year of Slow Cooking. Good stuff.

The biggest challenge is finding an oven-proof dish that fits in your slow cooker.

Ingredients
1 tablespoon yeast
1/4 cup warm water
1 cup warm milk or buttermilk
1/4 cup rolled oats
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons honey
1 whole egg
1/4 cup millet
2 tablespoons ground flax seeds
2 3/4 cups whole wheat flour

Method

  • Grease a deep ovenproof dish (I used a 1.5 quart Corningware dish).
  • In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water; mix and let sit for five minutes.
  • Add milk, oats, salt, oil, honey, egg and ground flax seeds. Mix well.
  • Add flour and knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes.
  •  Turn dough into an oven-proof dish (sized to fit in your slow cooker).
  • In bottom of the slow cooker, place 1/2 cup of water and a trivet or something to elevate the dish off the bottom of the cooker.
  • Place dish on the trivet; set a piece of oiled foil over the dough. From what I can tell, the foil is to keep the condensation from making the top soggy.
  • Cover and bake on high for 3 hours.
  • Remove and let cool on a wire rack.
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