Thursday, November 3, 2011

Jalapeno Bread in a Rice Cooker

Not made in China.
I was curious to try baking in a rice cooker because what is a rice cooker but a container which emits heat semi-evenly from all directions?  Like Alton Brown or like anyone who lives in a small apartment, I'm all about multi-functional appliances.  A rice cooker is a surprisingly versatile appliance.  I had already figured out how to make yogurt out of both my rice cooker and crockpot.  I really wanted to know if it would bake bread.

The problem with baking bread in my toaster oven is that the loaves have to be really small or the tops and bottoms will burn.  I end up spending several hours baking bread in batches, and the last few loaves always look a bit deflated from the yeast dying out.  With a rice cooker, I just threw in the whole lump of dough then went and watched The Bad Girls Club (a lifestyle inspiration, really).

Making jalapeno bread in the rice cooker was my first crack at baking bread in a rice cooker.  It turned out really well.  The texture is slightly spongy/doughy because the rice cooker traps moisture and slightly steams the bread.  It would've been more AWESOME with some melted cheddar cheese on top, but my piggy sister ate ALL OF IT before I could throw it back in the rice cooker.  Since then, I've made a nice loaf with the melted cheese, and it's delivered all that my deductive reasoning had pointed to.

Rice Cooker Cheesy Jalapeno Bread
350 grams flour (2.5 cups)
5 grams yeast (about 1 teaspoon)
21 grams sugar (about 1.5 tbsp)
6.5 grams salt (about 1.5 tsp)
21 grams butter (about 1.5 tbsp)
30ml milk (1 oz. or 2 tablespoons)
180 ml water (6 oz. or 3/4 cups)
3/4 cup jalapenos, chopped
1/2 cup cheddar cheese, shredded

Put the yeast into a bowl and add a pinch of sugar and about 1/4 cup warm water.  Let it sit for 10 minutes to get the yeast activated.  It should look all foamy and crazy when done.


While waiting for the yeast, put the flour, salt, and sugar into the rice cooker and mix to combine.  Then add the milk and then the yeast mixture.  Mix around to form a dough.

Get the butter and stick it into the middle of the dough ball.  Throw the jalapenos on top.


Then knead for about 10 minutes to get the butter and jalapenos incorporated.  Form into a ball again.

Stick the dough into the rice cooker and let it rise for about an hour until doubled in size.  You can have the rice cooker on the warm setting if you're baking in the winter and you have a converted sunroom for a kitchen (me).

When the dough has risen, punch it down.  Form it into a ball again.  Let it rise for another hour in the same way as the first rise.


When risen, turn the rice cooker on and cook for one hour.  If you have a cheap rice cooker like mine, you'll have to walk by and make sure the auto-shutoff hasn't switched the cooking cycle to warm.  After one hour, flip the bread, sprinkle with shredded cheddar cheese and cook for another 45 minutes to an hour.  (My bread loaf looks like an octopus because the dough rose too much and stuck all over the top of the rise cooker.  If you have a small rice cooker like me, scale the recipe down a bit or use less yeast.)


After another hour or so, you should have a nice, rotund loaf of jalapeno bread!  The pictures don't show cheese because these were taken the first time around where the cheese never made it.


 Enjoy!  Yom yom yom.

My super-Korean picture.
Since then, I've succeeded in making no-knead bread in the rice cooker.  The lazy, no-knead, 3-ingredient bread.

54 comments:

  1. Sounds good...i really need to buy a rice cooker ^^

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  2. You don't have a rice cooker? They're like $5 on Craigslist. You can cook everything in a rice cooker!

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  3. This looks delicious--I can't wait to try it!

    One question: how big is your rice cooker? Or rather, for what size rice cooker is this recipe scaled?

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  4. What size rice cooker do you have? I have one, but it's a Zojirushi NS-VGC05 (3 cup max). I'd like to make this bread, but I don't know how to adjust the measurements.

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  5. Hi, sorry for the late response. My rice cooker is a 3-cup rice cooker - a baby. Good luck! This bread is awesome!

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  6. Stumbled upon your site thanks to buzzfeed.com.. Very unique recipes on here that I can't wait to try. Starting with cheesy jalepeno bread in my rice cooker tonight! Thank you :) -Amy

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  7. i made this a week ago , and it was soooooooo good :) Thanks!

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  8. Made this tonight!! It's so good! We ended up using an entire little package of the dry active yeast. It had called for 1/4 cup of warm water so I thought maybe it was a little different than what you had used. We also had to add a little extra water because it would not form a ball. It turned out so great!!

    YUMMM!! Thanks so much!!

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  9. Nice article! I find your writing style very entertaining. I'm looking forward to trying this out too.

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  10. Looking forward to trying this. My 1999 Rival, Automatic Steamer and Rice Cooker might work. I have the owner's guide but it didn't have any bread directions. If it works I will let you know. Thank you for sharing. If it dosent work I might move to the crockpot.

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  11. Hello! Great recipe, I cant wait to try it. But I want to ask if we can substitute the jalapenos for anything else? And if so, do you have any suggestions? Thanks!

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    1. Hi sorry for the late response. Have you tried olives?

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  12. You can bake bread in a crockpot. It never gets crusty on top and you cannot flip it if the bottom is smaller than the top. I bake a huge loaf in a 6 qt pot and it takes 3.5 hours. You can use a no-knead refrigerator dough and go right from the fridge to the crockpot and it will rise and bake as the crockpot heats up. I use it all summer and whenever I am lazy baking.

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  13. Made this bread tonight and the bottom burnt black after only a half hour!! Don't know why.

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    1. The same thing happened to me! Smoked out the whole house!!!!!

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    2. Hi I'm really sorry to hear that :( I'm not sure what the issue could have been.

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    3. Sounds like you need a better rice cooker, one that can sense when things might burn and turn the heat down accordingly.

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  14. Doesn't matter if its a super-korean pic, you're a cutie and the bread looks delicious :)

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  15. Hi you mentioned 3/4 cup of water in the ingredients but it doesn't say when to use it other than the 1/4 in the beginning with the yeast?

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    1. Hi I'm sorry, I need to go back and edit this. The water just goes in when forming the dough when you combine all the ingredients to knead into a ball. Hope this helps! Thanks for catching the mistake :)

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  16. Could you possibly write up how to make a healthy whole wheat bread in the rice cooker? I would love to be able to make my own and know that no bad ingredients are going into it. I also don't have a stovetop.

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    1. I made a whole wheat bread using this recipe as a basis. I used this recipe because I never baked in a rice cooker before and was looking specifically for recipes for rice-cooker, which I have found are very difficult to find. I just left out the jalapenos and cheese and used half whole wheat flour and half regular flour. Turned out great, and I suspect most any bread recipe would as well. I don't look for "rice-cooker specific" recipes anymore.

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  17. hi, really good post, gives students like me with minimal cooking facilities SO much hope! :D
    just wondering what kind of yeast you've used? i've got the dry active yeast, would i need the same amount of that as you've mentioned?

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  18. what kind of milk? fresh/ sweetened milk(thick)
    ty

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  19. Yum!! :) This is very clever! I'm definitely keen to use this recipe soon :)

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  20. What would you propose as a substitute for Jalapenos or can they be excluded completely? This makes me hungry right away!

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    1. Oh you totally don't need the jalapenos! I just like them for a spicy punch. If you'd like you can just omit them completely, or sub in some olives, sauteed onions, sun-dried tomatoes...whatever you'd like :)

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  21. Love baking bread..Must try this too.Thanks for sharing.

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  22. What is this no-knead, 3 ingredient rice cooker recipe you speak of?

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  23. So nice article! It looks very nice if you make it in a good cook item, I used Redmond 4502 multicooker and I was pleased. Don't use rice cooker - nothing good will happen.

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  24. I would like to try this. What sort of flour did you use?

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  25. Hi, I would like to try this. What sort of flour did you use?

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  26. What do you do with the 180ml water listed in the ingredients?

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  27. what flour did u used.., is it multipurpose flour?

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  28. what flour did u used.., is it multipurpose flour?

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  29. I tried this recipe using regular all-purpose flour and it turned out great.

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  30. The ingredients lists calls for 3/4 cup water but the directions say to use 1/4 cup water with the yeast. I followed the directions and ended up with a dry mess I just threw out.

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  31. I made this with olives instead of Jalapenos, turned out great!!! Almost ate the whole bread myself in one go!

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  32. Do the large chunks of jalapeno bring out the spicy taste too much? Is it over powering, or is it like Tim Hortins jalapeno specialty bagel?

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  33. I did it today and OH SO DELICIOUS! I used dried oregano, nuts and fresh basil instead of the jalapeƱos (I'm not really into spicy things). But why do you put the 180ml of water if you don't use them? I had to add them anyways cause the dough was really dry and wouldn't stick together..

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  34. Really nice life hacks I find published here! Yesterday we go for trying Ruth's quiche recipe but it went sooo delicious that we end up with a party of quiches! Thank fo the recipe. Big hug to Ruth!)

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  35. This is really amazing. Going to try it soon with my rice cooker.

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  36. Thank you for sharing the excellent information related to rice cooker

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  37. Looks amazing. I always thought that you could make jalapeno bread in a rice cooker but didn't know exactly how

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  38. Wow,it looks delicious. Thank you for sharing. I will try to make this bread for my family. I believe my family will like this very much. Love

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  39. I made this with olives instead of Jalapenos, turned out great!!! Almost ate the whole bread myself in one go!

    Thanks dear

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  40. Did you use fresh or pickled jalapeƱos? Recipe doesn't mention but they look pickled in photo.

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