You Can Make Instant Bread in an Instant Pot
It’s a bit ironic that the best time to bake bread (a cold, dark day) is the worst time to proof (or test) the bread. Bread yeast needs a warm and humid environment to grow and can be difficult to find in October. The microwave is a pretty good box for making ersatz proofers, but that means your microwave will be busy for at least an hour, which can be inconvenient. But if you have an Instant Pot, you can create a very test-friendly environment using the Yogurt setting.
In fact, the environment is so friendly that it can even shorten the proofing time. I baked this peasant bread last night, and it doubled in one hour and 22 minutes (the timer on the Instant Pot showed the exact number), a full eight minutes less than his 1/2 to 2 hour proofing. window.
However, it is not as easy as placing the dough on the liner and pressing the Yogurt button. This puts the dough too close to the heating element and the yeast doesn’t like it. In fact, they hate it so much that they will refuse to do their job (or die altogether, depending on how close they are to the heating element) and your bread will never reach the desired volume.
It’s easy to get around this: just place a rack in the insert, place a piece of parchment on the rack, and place the dough on top of the parchment, keeping the dough away from that pesky heating element. Place a piece of plastic wrap over the top of the Instant Pot, then press the Yogurt button, making sure it is set to Normal and not More or Less.
Then take a step back and let the yeast do its thing until the dough has expanded as much as it should have been according to the recipe. If you are looking for a very simple bread recipe to try, I just have to recommend the aforementioned peasant bread . It turns out that the peasantry was very hot.