I have decided to begin doing product reviews here on my blog, since I keep thinking of cool things I want to brag about to you. Have a product in your shop or on your site you’d like me to review here at Heavenly Homemakers? Email me!
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I recently broke down and got something I’ve been wanting for a long time: These very cool Pampered Chef bread baking crocks.
I love these crocks for several reasons.
1. I love baking in stones no matter what I’m baking. Stoneware bakes breads and pizza and cookies wonderfully. I have a round pizza stone, regular loaf pan stones and a big rectangular stone. And now I have these cool round baking stone crocks! I know my food is safe when I bake with stones.
2. These crocks really produce a nice loaf of bread. I think it’s something about the way the dough just has to rise upward instead of sideways and upward. (You now know by that explanation that I’m not a scientist.)
3. You’ll find them inexpensively at the Pampered Chef Outlet (the regular catalog doesn’t carry them anymore). I was so excited to only pay $7/crock. That’s a great price for stones!
My favorite reason to love these crocks…
4. They make awesome round slices of bread. Which are the perfect shape for sloppy joes or hamburgers. I LOVE that about these crocks. And, having round slices of bread…well…that’s just fun!
One or two draw backs to these lovely crocks…
1. They aren’t the easiest to clean…which really just means that it takes 45 seconds to wash it instead of the 30 seconds it takes to wash a regular loaf pan. Woe is me.
2. You have to take the top rack out of your oven to bake the loaves…otherwise your bread hits the top of the oven and gets stuck and you feel like you may never get it out and when you finally do, it looks like this:
Or it’s dented like this:
And we all know that having dented bread is just tragic. ;)
Ooh, and if you want to bake yourself some of this delicious Honey Whole Wheat Bread, you’ll find my recipe here. I’ll try to do a tutorial for you soon about how I bake bread. Because if you don’t know how, you really should learn…because it’s not hard and there’s NOTHING like freshly baked bread. With butter. Melted all over it. On a cool fall day. With a glass of milk. Ahh….
I have two of these from my bridal shower that have yet to be used because I didn’t know what to do with them!!! Now I know! And isn’t it convenient that I just learned to bake fresh bread????
How cool is that?! I love my Pampered Chef stones, but I hadn’t even heard of this one or the outlet. I’m going to check it out!! What a cute and fun way to make bread! Thanks for sharing!! :D
Two of my favorite things! Pampered Chef and Bread! My sister sells PC so i get a lot of stuff as gifts and I love it. We use the pizza stone all the time! How do you store your bread? I used to keep it in old bread sacks the family saved, but it got bad freezer burn. Recently I got a food saver with the “no crush feature”. It works pretty good but if you’re not careful the pretty top of the bread can get crunched. I just got it so I have one loaf in the freezer to see if it gets freezer burn.
What a pretty crock, and beautiful bread! Lovely!
OH, I am super excited now, my favorite blogger loves PC!!! I just purchased (and am waiting for) 2 loaf pans… !!! Now I must run over to the outlet and see if they have any round crocks left!!!!
VERY PRETTY BREAD!!! and you are right there is NOTHING better than fresh baked bread (nix the butter, for me, but my family would agree with the butter part too!!!!)
WOW! I’ve never seen those crocks before…how fun! Now I’ll have something to purchase at the next Pampered Chef party I’m invited to :) Thanks! Glad you had a good camping trip.
Two things: first, I LOVE Pampered Chef, too! And I always love to find others that love it :o) I’m having a party next month (the stoneware is the guest special at 20% off — woohoo!) and I can’t wait to order a few more pieces. :o)
Second: your feed is working again, so whatever you did to fix it — I’m so glad!!! Yay! Now I can get my heavenly homemaker fix (and maybe even comment every once in a while. :P)
Oh, Please do a bread tutorial. I so need that!!! Thanks for this product recommendation!
Seriously? Seven dollars a piece? I’m getting TWO! And… when they arrive, I’ll bake my first two loaves of WHEAT bread!!! :-)
I got an addiction from my mom…. get at brand new fresh out of the oven loaf of bread, slice and toast in the toaster. Melt butter all over, and enjoy!
I know, kinda strange… but Oh, so very yummy!
That IS very cool. I have a pizza stone that I love. Maybe I’ll have to try one of these out. I have a relative in the area who’s a Pampered Chef dealer. Maybe she can cut me a deal… :)
I love this idea. I am trying to not buy processed foods so I love the idea of using it for hamburger buns. Much easier than making rolls. Thanks.
I have one of these. I also bought them while on clearance. I made an apple quick bread in it (I think the recipe came with it) and it was great! The round loaves also fit nicely in a toaster. We made english muffin bread in it as well. Yum!!
I have a myriad of stones from Pampered Chef that I love.
I am looking forward to your tutorial on bread-making. I have long wanted to learn, but have had no one to teach me.
Hello!
Oh, does that look yummy! It’s starting to cool off here in Michigan and I love baking in the crisp fall weather. Fresh bread smells heavenly!
I’d never heard of the baking crocks. Can’t wait to give it a try.
Take Care,
Trixie
http://farmhomelife.blogspot.com/
Wow! I’ve been looking for an alternative to buns. How big do these crocks make the bread? It looks like in the picture that they are nearly the size of a regular loaf. Do you just slice the whole thing up for buns for your family? Thank you for all of your info and your sense of humor!
We own a restaurant in Centurion, South africa. Would like to bake our own hamburger buns. The round breads sound like an interesting idea. Any nice recipes available? Elizabeth
I have this crock and I need recipe’s for it. Do you have a simple beer bread recipe? It looks smaller than a regular loaf pan, like your recipe with 6 cups of flour maybe should be 3. Thanks for your time and your wonderful site. I know this is an old thread, but still a goodie!
Diana
Well, I am finding this in Nov 2009 – and I don’t see those round stone pans available anymore. If someone knows where I can find them, I would love to know! Thanks. Kori
I love all pampered chef products! :) Which is why I became a consultant. A lot of people like their products, but have been to so many parties they don’t want to sit through the presentation and want to feel that they can browse without feeling required to buy something or something large.. I have attached a link above you can order from directly. Hope this helps :)
http://www.pamperedchef.biz/Nicoleandmelissa
You might check for this epans on ebay! I’ve seen them there before!
Sad, they don’t sell these anymore!
Hi Laura
I was interested in your whole wheat crock receipe. I clicked on your link but it brought me to the current postings on your website. I just inherited 2 of these baking crocks from my Mom and haven’t a clue on how to use them. I thought by glancing your receipe it would give me a good foundation. I’ve been searching the web for receipes and came upon your blog. Thanks so much if you can supply the receipe!
Warmly,
Cheri
Here’s the real link: https://heavenlyhomemakers.com/how-to-make-whole-wheat-bread-tutorial
I’ll go edit the post to fix the link!
Thank you for sharing these! I will definitely check out. I miss the round loaves I used to make back in the day of Laurel’s Kitchen cookbook. They suggested taking juice cans and cutting the top off to fit more in the oven. I would bake 6 loaves at at time. Of course there are healthy concerns with that practice nowadays (bisphenol A), and am sure if the authors rewrote the book they would not suggest that again.
Sux 2 B me. Pampered Chef has discontinued their baking crock. And I had just learned that the traditional English way to bake was in such a thing in addition to the “plop it on a stone” method. The crock would probably make for a much less tough crust for most of the loaf, too.
Off I search for a good unglazed substitute. But still happy to have found a how-to for it.
I’m seeing lots of these available in eBay. Think I will try the wheat bread recipe.
Just found one of these in a second hand store in Ontario Canada in brand new condition for 2.00. Never new they existed can’t wait to start using it!!