Crockpot: Bread #4 (no-knead, grilled cheese)

Kaylee's not-a-blog » Food » Crockpot » Bread #4 (no-knead, grilled cheese)

During a National Forest stay in April 2020, I was sheltering-in-place (due to a pandemic), and ended up staying for 3 and a half weeks with no resupply (that particular Forest has a 30 day dispersed camping limit).
Normally, that would have meant no bread after about the mid point.
With my solar powered crockpot, and new "no-knead" bread skills, I was able to make bread as often as I wanted, subject to weather. :)

My first couple of loaves were a quarter of the recipe at Wikipedia.
I've now standardized on half the original recipe, which still fits both my cereal bowl sized mixing bowl (barely) and quart-sized crockpot.

I let the dough rise overnight in the crockpot, since the bowl is too small.
That has ended up being easier, and I no longer bother with the "2nd rise", I just briefly inspect the dough before turning on the power. :)

Here's the ingredients, which I carefully weigh:

200 g flour
0.5 g yeast
4 g salt
150 g water

That produces a loaf which weighs about 300g, which is about half the mass of a regular store bought loaf.

Instead of regular salt, I use one ramen flavoring packet, the contents of which weigh about 5 grams.
I'm assuming there's a wee bit of non-salt in it, plus, I have plenty of them, so this helps use them up. :)
Bonus: one less ingredient to measure.

Cost breakdown:
A 3-pack/strip of yeast costs about $1.15 (average price of my last 3), and contains enough to make 42 "medium" or 21 regular loaves.
A 5lb (2270g) bag of Walmart's unbleached all purpose flour costs about $1.22, and contains enough to make about 11 "medium" or almost 6 regular loaves.
Whole wheat flour costs around $3 to $4 for a 5 pound bag.

A "regular" size loaf using cheap flour costs about 27 cents (flour & yeast only), compared to 88 cents for Walmart's cheapest loaf of "white" bread.
A whole wheat flour loaf costs about 59 to 76 cents.

Value of the Satisfaction derived from making it oneself: priceless
Bonus: free Aroma Therapy :)

(That doesn't include the cost of parchment paper. I'll calculate that, eventually. Note that the box says it can be reused about 3 to 4 times, which I always do, of course.)

Pictures:

Note: For my last few loaves, I used "all purpose" flour, instead of my usual whole wheat, partly as an experiment, partly because my van is in full "Submarine Mode" and the cheap flour was easier to get to. :)

The instructions say form-it-into-a-ball, but that's really not necessary.
I just mix all the ingredients, dump the dough onto a piece of parchment paper, then plop that into my crockpot to rise overnight:

The clumps of yellow color are likely from the ramen packet (chicken "flavored").

After rising overnight about 12 hours, then cooking for about 5 hours:

After removing from crockpot:

I prefer the irregular, semi-Artisan look that comes from the "sloppy" dough. :)

Normally, I just rip pieces off with my hands.
Since these loaves are larger, I had planned to use them to make grilled cheese, and carefully sliced off each piece:

Grilled Cheese:

Starting sandwich in pan, using mayonaise instead of butter (since mayo is fridge-free-friendly):

After flipping:

After eating some, showing the ooey-gooey-cheese-goodness:

It tasted just as good as it looks. :)

Conclusion:
No knead bread continues to be extremely easy to make, with very little cognitive effort other than remembering when to perform each step.
There's enough flexibility in the timing that a couple of hours longer "rising"/auto-self-kneading is not a problem.