Slow Cooked: 200 exciting, new recipes for your slow cooker (35 page)
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Authors: Miss South
I am a fairly relaxed baker. I do weigh everything, but I tend to use granulated sugar for most things because it’s much cheaper. I’ve mentioned caster sugar or brown sugar specifically in the places I think they are best. All my eggs are large because my local shop only stocks large eggs and, for the same reason, I use salted butter too. I’ve always had good results with the basics brands of flours, but you may find the leavened breads easier with strong bread flour as the higher protein levels give a good rise.
All spoonfuls are level unless otherwise indicated and I do use specific measuring spoons for baking as I find them much easier to work with. Butter is room temperature unless otherwise specified.
My one speciality item is my beloved reusuable baking liner. Bought in the best known of the pound shops in their own kitchen range, it is like indestructible-strength greaseproof paper. The more you use it, the softer and more malleable it becomes, but it lasts ages. When it is newer and stiffer, I tape it onto the crock with paper washi tape or Sellotape before I pour the batter into it or you end up needing a third arm trying to hold it down and balance the batter bowl. Just peel the tape off before you turn the slow cooker on. Simply lift the liner out when your baking is complete. Much easier than greasing the crock and cuts down on the washing up!
All the baking was tested in a 3.5-litre crock and timings may vary in a 6.5-litre crock.
THE PERFECT BANANA BREAD
I have been making this banana bread for the last twenty years. I doubt a month has gone by without at least one batch being whipped up in my house. It is simple and foolproof and I’ve never met anyone who hasn’t loved it. The only thing I’ve done as often as bake it is write the recipe out for people. It was the first thing I baked in the slow cooker and honestly, I think it’s even better than the oven version as it gives a better crust to cake ratio. I’m very excited to have improved on a recipe I grew up on.
This is so simple to make I learned to do it while looking after three kids under ten. And yes, I was bribing them with banana bread since you ask.
SERVES 6–8
350g plain flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
½ teaspoon salt
200g sugar
180ml vegetable oil
2 eggs
3 large bananas
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Line the cold slow-cooker crock with reusable baking liner or greaseproof paper, making sure it comes about 5–7cm up the side of the crock.
Sift the flour into a large bowl. Add the baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt.
Put the sugar, oil and eggs into another bowl and mix well until the sugar looks like it is melting and the eggs are beaten. Mash the bananas and the vanilla extract into it.
Pour the oil and banana mixture into the flour and mix until just combined. It will be a slightly puffed up and thick batter.
Pour the batter into the lined crock. Put 4–5 sheets of kitchen roll, double thickness, across the top of the crock and put the lid on top.
Turn the slow cooker to high and cook for around 2 hours. The banana bread is ready when a skewer comes out clean. Remove the now damp kitchen roll and allow the crock to cool just enough to lift the banana bread out onto a rack.
Serve still slightly warm with some ice cream as a dessert or with a cup of tea. It keeps for 2–3 days in an airtight container and it can be toasted too for a fabulous breakfast.
Admit it. You think I’m just having a laugh now, don’t you? Chocolate black bean cake in a slow cooker? Is this a real recipe, you ask?
Oh yes, it’s a very real and very good recipe. A light, moist, gluten- and wheat-free cake that tastes like bourbon biscuits would if you made them into a cake. It’s also dairy-free and incredibly easy to make. I love this cake and often make it when I need a simple cake that impresses everyone. It also makes a great talking point as no one has ever guessed the secret ingredient as they tuck into a second slice. You’ll be glad you took me seriously and tried it.
Not only is this a delicious cake that pleases everyone, it’s astoundingly easy to make.
SERVES 6–8
150g dark chocolate, chopped
1 × 400g tin black beans, drained, or 250g cooked black beans
3 eggs
100g sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
100g frozen and thawed black cherries (optional)
Line the slow-cooker crock with greaseproof paper or a reusable baking liner.
Melt 100g of the dark chocolate in a bowl over a pan of warm water, making sure none of the water gets into the chocolate. Supermarket own-brand or basic ranges include excellent chocolate at very reasonable prices, which I use for baking all the time.
Put the beans into a large bowl and pour the melted chocolate over them all. Add the eggs, sugar, vanilla, baking powder and salt and use a hand blender to blitz it all to a thin batter that looks like chocolate milkshake in consistency.
Stir the remaining chocolate chunks through the batter along with the cherries, if you are using them. It doesn’t matter if the cherries sink a bit, you want them to go soft and jammy and that happens best if they are low down in the cake.
Pour the batter into the lined crock. Cover the crock with a few sheets of kitchen roll folded over and put the lid on the slow cooker.
Bake the cake on high for 2–2½ hours, testing it with a skewer after 2 hours. The cake is ready when the skewer comes out clean. Allow it to sit in the slow cooker with the heat off for a further 15 minutes.
Lift the cake out and allow to cool completely on a rack before you peel the liner back or try to cut the cake. Flourless cakes are quite fragile and can crumble if not handled carefully. Cut into slices and eat along with a cuppa or serve with crème fraîche as a dessert.
People always look at me strangely when I mention boiled cake, thinking I’ve taken a cake and dropped it into hot water. Instead, it is an incredibly soft fruit cake where the fruit is literally boiled in liquid to make it dark, sticky and moist. Traditional in Northern Ireland, this cake is quick to make, but lasts well so you always have some when people drop in.
This is my granny’s recipe adapted for the slow cooker. You can boil the fruit in the slow cooker during the day if you like or do it on the hob, but baking the cake in the slow cooker creates a chewy crust that made even fruit cake-sceptics adore it at a recent book group. I’m not sure how well it lasts as we ate the whole thing in one go.
SERVES 6–8
175g sugar
350g raisins or a mixture of raisins, sultanas, currants, peel and cherries
115g butter
250ml black tea or water
350g plain flour
1¼ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon mixed spice or 1 each of ground cinnamon and allspice
1 egg
Put the sugar, dried fruit, butter and tea or water in a saucepan and boil for 20 minutes. This plumps up the fruit and infuses it with flavour. I have also made this a serious celebration cake by using some stout here. Not that my granny would ever have had stout in the house…
It will take about 5 hours to boil the fruit in the slow cooker and it will smell amazing. You don’t need to do this if you’ve boiled the fruit in a saucepan, but it can be a handy alternative.
Sift the flour into a large bowl and add the bicarbonate of soda and mixed spice. Stir in the boiled fruit and any remaining liquid. Add in a beaten egg and stir until just combined. It will come together like a dough rather than a batter, coming together as one large blob.
Line the slow-cooker crock with greaseproof paper or a reusable baking liner. Pour the cake mix into it the lined crock, put the lid on the slow cooker and bake for 2 hours on high. The cake will rise beautifully, develop a sticky, chewy crust and is ready when a skewer comes out clean.
Lift the cake out and cool on a rack. serve in slices (I like it well buttered) with a strong cuppa. The cake will keep in a tin for several weeks and actually improves with age as it gets softer and stickier.
Because dulce de leche is just so easy to make in the slow cooker, I always have some in the house and it adds a gorgeous flavour to anything with little effort, which is how this cake came about when I needed something really good that I could make with ease. It’s simple and easy and went down very well with my editor, Laura, who shares my dulce de leche love.
SERVES 6–8
225g butter, softened
180g caster sugar
4 eggs
2 tablespoons instant coffee
1 tablespoon boiling water
3 tablespoons Dulce de Leche (see note)
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground allspice
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
225g self-raising flour
2 teaspoons Dulce de Leche, to serve
Line the slow-cooker crock with greaseproof paper or a reusable baking liner.
Put the butter and sugar in a large bowl and cream together until light and fluffy. An electric whisk makes this much easier. Add the eggs one at a time, beating them in well. If the mixture looks a little bit curdled, don’t worry.
Mix the instant coffee with the boiling water and allow to cool slightly. Add the dulce de leche to the egg and butter mixture and beat it in. Add the coffee, vanilla extract and the spices and mix well.
Add the self-raising flour and fold it in to prevent the air from getting knocked out of the cake. Stop as soon as the flour is combined and pour the batter into the lined crock. Smooth the top down and put the lid on the slow cooker.
Cook on high for 2 hours. After 2 hours, check with a skewer and if it doesn’t come out clean, cover the top of the crock with kitchen roll and put the lid back on. Bake for another 30 minutes.
Lift the cake out of the crock and allow it to cool on a rack. Poke about ten holes all over the cake with a skewer and drizzle 2 teaspoons of dulce de leche over the top of the cake. It will soak in and moisten the cake further and add a beautiful sheen to the top.
Note:
You’ll find a recipe for Dulce de Leche
here
, but if you don’t have any, replace it in the cake with condensed milk or double cream. Brush the top of the cake with a little sugar syrup instead, made from 25g brown sugar mixed with 25ml water and boiled until a sticky syrup.
This cake was created with my friend Adriana in mind. A truly unconditional friend, the only time I’ve shocked her was when I told her I didn’t like lemon drizzle cake. She rallied to hide her disappointment in me, but her devotion to the cake made me wonder what I was missing by shunning it. I find lemon cakes to be too sweet and a bit too dry and wondered if I could create something that was moist and tangy to convert me.
Using whole puréed lemons I’ve boiled makes the cake very sticky and moist and it keeps brilliantly. I’m team lemon cake all the way now. Adriana need not worry any more.
SERVES 6–8
3 lemons, approximately 450g (if waxed, give them a vigorous scrub under the hot tap)
225g coarse cornmeal or polenta
75g plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
125g sugar
50ml plain yoghurt (see home-made Yoghurt
here
)
2 eggs, beaten
1 grapefruit, juiced, or 2 tablespoons lemon juice
Start by preparing your lemons. I usually cook my lemons in the slow cooker. Simply cover them with boiling water, put on the lid and cook on high for 4 hours or until they are soft when poked with a skewer. You could also do it on the hob where they will need to be boiled for about 1½ hours, checking that they don’t boil dry.
Take them out of the water and using a hand blender or potato masher, blend them until they are a thick purée. They smell incredible when you do this. Set aside.
Line the slow-cooker crock with greaseproof paper or reusable baking liner. Make sure the paper comes at least halfway up the side of the crock as this cake rises a lot.
Combine the cornmeal, flour, baking powder and sugar in a large bowl. Pour in the yoghurt and beaten eggs. Add the lemon purée and the grapefruit juice and mix until just combined. The acid in the yoghurt and the fruit activates the baking powder so the batter puffs up and becomes very light.
Quickly pour the batter into the lined crock and cover the crock with 4 sheets of kitchen roll, doubled over. Put the lid on the slow cooker and bake for 2 hours. Check with a skewer to see if it comes out clean. The cake will be very moist to the touch, so pressing it with your finger makes it hard to tell if the centre is cooked.
Lift the cake out of the crock and allow to cool completely on a rack. Cut into slices and enjoy. The cake will keep for up to 5 days in a tin.
Mister North lived in Lancaster for several years and I used to get the boat and train over to visit him, but neither of us ever came across this tart at the time. Think of it as a detour from the branch line of Bakewell with its similar pastry base and frangipane topping, but with the diversion of a tangy lemon curd filling instead of jam. Well worth a return journey to Lancaster, I’ve adapted it to the slow cooker and given it a biscuit base instead. It’s very simple to make and I can’t understand why it’s not better known as a dessert.
SERVES 6–8
100g digestive biscuits or ginger nuts
100g butter, melted