Who’da thunk it?  Not me, but apparently others have and did and now, I have not only thunk it but done it.  In our on-going search to find ways to cook things without using the big oven (Reason 1: it’s not working right now {or maybe it’s just our continuing fuse box problem?}; and 2: it uses beaucoup electricity), I found out that the crockpot that we have, a Rival 3 and 1/2 quart model, could be used to make bread.  Rival used to make an insert that you could buy (I don’t think they do anymore, this is an old crockpot) called the Bread ‘n Cake Bake Pan, which the e-Bay meister found on e-Bay (surprise!) and purchased for moi.

Kinda purty, eh?  Here’s another view looking down inside:

The pan came with an instruction and recipe sheet, and after perusing the recipes we decided to start with the Boston Brown Bread one.  Hey, who’s in the World Series, eh?

1 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup yellow cornmeal

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup dark molasses

1 and 1/2 cups buttermilk

1 cup chopped nuts (I used walnuts)

1 cup raisins

Combine flour, baking powder, soda and salt.  Stir in cornmeal and whole wheat flour.  Add molasses and buttermilk, beat well.  Stir in nuts and raisins.  Pour batter into a greased and floured Bread ‘n Cake Bake pan.  Pour one cup of water into crockpot, set pan inside.  Cover and bake on high 3 to 4 and 1/2 hours or until pick inserted in center comes out clean.

I used a butter-flavored pan spray to “grease” the inside of the pan, and began checking it with a long skewer after 3 hours.  I think it was actually ready at 4 and 1/2 hours, but we let it go another 15 minutes which was a little too long.  But it was good, dark and chunky with the raisins and nuts.

Looks a little like a birthday cake, doesn’t it?  A little cream cheese icing, some candles…

Anyhow, it worked very well, and was a pleasant surprise.  The whole learning experience is a pleasant surprise, and my next culinary creation a la the crockpot will be the Pumpkin Tea Bread.   Halloween treat, n’est-ce pas?

PS~ Here’s a link to a PDF file for instructions and recipes: http://www.endtimesreport.com/Rival_Bread’n_Cake_Bake.pdf