The Great American Slow Cooker Book (117 page)

1
Set a 1-quart, high-sided, round soufflé dish or baking dish in the slow cooker. Fill the canister (not the baking dish) with warm tap water until it comes about halfway up the dish. Remove it, then cover the cooker and cook on high while you prepare the chocolate mixture.

2
Warm the cream and vanilla in a small saucepan set over medium-low heat just until bubbles fizz around the outer edge of the pan.

3
Place the chopped chocolate in a large bowl; pour in the warmed cream. Stir with a rubber spatula until the chocolate melts. Set aside to cool at room temperature for 10 minutes.

4
Use an electric mixer to beat the egg yolks and sugar at medium speed in a second bowl until thick and pale yellow, even fluffy, about 5 minutes. Beat in the chocolate mixture and salt until smooth, then pour into the prepared baking dish.

5
Cover the baking dish with plastic wrap and set it all in the slow cooker. Cover and cook on high for 1 hour 45 minutes, or until the custard barely jiggles when the baking dish is tapped. Remove the baking dish from the slow cooker, peel off the plastic wrap, and cool on a wire rack for 1 hour before refrigerating for at least 4 hours or up to 2 days, all before serving. After 4 hours in the fridge, cover the baking dish again with new plastic wrap.

TESTERS’ NOTES

•
Pot de crème (
poh-duh-CREM
) is like a dense chocolate pudding but with no thickeners in the mix—no flour, no cornstarch. It’s as elemental a dessert as you can imagine—and made wondrously silky by moist heat.

•
Bittersweet chocolate offers a more pleasing, acidic bite than semisweet chocolate would.

•
For an easy way to get a hot baking dish out of the slow cooker
using cheesecloth
.

•
Spoonfuls of this dessert in bowls call out for
whipped cream
.

1
Mix the chocolate, cream, butter, vanilla, and salt in a round, high-sided, 1-quart soufflé or baking dish. Set that dish in the slow cooker.

2
Cover and cook on low for 2 hours, or until the chocolate has melted and the fondue is hot. Whisk until smooth.

TESTERS’ NOTES

•
You’ve never had fondue as the slow cooker can make it. There’s no chance of the chocolate turning bitter.

•
Some recipes call for melting the chocolate mixture right in the slow cooker, no baking dish needed. However, we feel it’s too difficult to spear bits of strawberries or pound cake cubes, dunk them into the deep cooker, and get them somewhere near your plate. Instead, we prefer to be able to bring the smaller, shallower baking dish to the table. (We even set it on a stand over a candle to keep it warm.)

•
You needn’t make this great quantity. You can halve the ingredients and use a 2-cup ramekin. The cooking time will be reduced to 1½ hours.

Serve It Up!
You’ll need bamboo skewers and various things to dip: strawberries, sliced bananas, cubed pound cake, or marshmallows. Or skip the spears and go simple: use graham crackers and some peanut butter to smear on them before they take a dunk.

1
Stir the evaporated milk, condensed milk, corn syrup, baking soda, vanilla, and salt in the slow cooker until the corn syrup dissolves. Add the cinnamon sticks.

2
Cover and cook on high for 1 hour.

3
Uncover, then continue cooking on high, stirring every 30 minutes, for 3 to 4 hours in a small slow cooker, 4 to 5 hours in a medium cooker, or 5 to 6 hours in a large cooker until the mixture is thick, brown, and sticky. Spoon into glass jars, seal, and refrigerate for up to 2 weeks.

TESTERS’ NOTES

•
This is the iconic caramel sauce, usually made just from sweetened condensed milk, but here it is morphed to fit the slow cooker’s unique heat, with some vanilla and cinnamon added for even more flavor. Do not use fat-free sweetened condensed milk for this treat.

•
No, you won’t get away from all that stirring, but you won’t have to do as much as you would stovetop. Once the
lid comes off, you need to do so every 30 minutes to keep the mixture from scorching as it reduces and caramelizes.

•
The timings here are given in a range since this technique is essentially candy-making, and thus dependent on the day’s weather, humidity, and even temperature.

INGREDIENTS EXPLAINED
Light
corn syrup refers only to its color, as opposed to dark corn syrup. Do not use reduced-calorie corn syrup, since it won’t provide the right ratio of sugars to make the sauce gooey.

Serve It Up!
Spoon it onto ice cream, stir it into coffee, drizzle it on shortbread, or simply lick it off the spoon.

1
Set a round, high-sided, 1-quart baking or soufflé dish in the slow cooker, then fill the surrounding canister with warm tap water until it comes about halfway up the side of the baking dish. Remove the dish, cover the cooker, and cook on high while you prepare the bread pudding.

2
Whisk the eggs, ricotta, milk, sour cream, sugar, lemon zest, vanilla, and salt in a large bowl until creamy and light. Add the bread cubes and raisins; stir until well moistened. Pack everything into the prepared baking dish, pouring any excess liquid in the bowl over the top of the bread cubes. Sprinkle the top with cinnamon.

3
Set the baking dish in the slow cooker. Overlap long strips of paper towels over the top of the cooker, hanging down the sides for stability. Cover and cook on high for 2 hours, or until set and firm. Transfer the baking dish to a wire rack and cool for 10 minutes before scooping out servings.

TESTERS’ NOTES

•
This bread pudding is denser than most, partly because it’s steamed and partly because of the nature of the cheese-laced custard. When cold, cut it into wedges.

•
Fat-free ricotta and fat-free sour cream are loaded with stabilizers that will cease to work in the hot, steamy cooker—and lead the sauce to break. A little extra fat, even in the low-fat versions, safeguards the pudding.

•
If you’ve removed the zest from the lemon with a citrus zester, mince those strips into fine bits so there are no lemony threads in the mix.

1
Generously grease the inside of the canister with unsalted butter, taking care to get into the seam between the wall and the bottom.

2
Lay the bread cubes out on a clean, dry work surface; then spread one side of as many as you can with the strawberry jam. Toss them into the slow cooker.

3
Blend the milk, peanut butter, eggs, sugar, vanilla, and salt in a large covered blender until smooth, scraping down the inside of the container once or twice. Pour this puree over the bread cubes, then press down with the back of a wooden spoon until they are submerged and have soaked up a good deal of the liquid.

4
Cover and cook on high for 1 hour 45 minutes in a small slow cooker, 2 hours in a medium model, or 2½ hours in a large cooker, or until the pudding is set with little trace of moisture anywhere in the cooker. Scoop up warm servings without delay.

TESTERS’ NOTES

•
There are already bread puddings in the Breakfast chapter, but these are sweeter, more in keeping with dessert (or an afternoon treat).

•
Spreading the bread with the jam is the hardest part of this recipe. The best tool is a small spreader for soft cheeses or creamy dips, rather than a flatware knife.

•
By getting the bread to absorb much of the liquid before you begin to cook the bread pudding, you’ll reduce the risk of having the eggs scramble and adhere to the sides of the cooker.

•
Unfortunately, none of these bread puddings makes a good leftover for dessert the next day. The bread turns to mush.

1
Heat the oven to 350°F. In the meantime, generously butter the inside of the canister.

2
Spread the bread cubes on a large, lipped baking sheet and toast in the oven until golden brown, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes. Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Toss the bread cubes, walnuts, and salt in the slow cooker.

3
Heat the milk in a large saucepan set over medium-low heat until it begins to fizz and bubble at the edges of the pan. Whisk in the chocolate, cocoa powder, and sugar, until the chocolate has fully dissolved and the mixture is uniform in color. Cool for 15 minutes.