Copycat Outback bread recipe to make your family happy

You’ll love this easy copycat Outback bread recipe; it’s a quick and easy whole wheat bread with molasses and a little bit of cocoa for extra color.

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This brown bread is a favorite in our house. I’ve learned to not announce that I’m making it so that everyone has an equal chance at getting a hunk to go with soup. Speaking of soup, this bread is a top contender for our favorite breads to go with soup along with mini bread bowls, whole wheat dinner rolls, potato garlic knots, and pita bread.

You won’t need to pay for a pricey steakhouse dinner to enjoy this easy to make bread either. A few minutes of work and you can get this bread on its way towards dinner.

Copycat Outback Bread Recipe

What is Outback Bread

Outback bread is the dark brown bread rich with molasses and cocoa that you get at Outback Steakhouse before your meal. It’s a soft delicious bread that’s always something to look forward to. Raise your hand if you’ve always looked forward to spreading on butter with those giant knives they have there (hand raised!).

This bread shares a lot of DNA in terms of ingredients and flavors to Boston brown bread, though it baked and not steamed as is Boston bread, and Outback bread is also yeasted instead of being leavened with baking soda.

Why you need this recipe in your life

1. It’s approachable: This is a mix and go bread. Pop everything into a mixer and you’re good to go. If you’ve never made bread before, you can handle this bread.
2. The shape: The multiple small loaves this recipe makes is a fun alternative to individual bread rolls. Cutting off slices from these small loaves has a cute factor you don’t get from either normal dinner rolls or from a standard size loaf pan.
3. No pans required: I bake these loaves free form on a baking sheet. As such, you don’t need to worry about having the “right” size pan. Plus, baking free-form is a great chance to practice your loaf shaping skills. This is a great bread to make with your kids so they can learn how to shape a loaf of bread, too!
4. It goes with everything: While we love this bread for soup night, the warm slightly sweet flavors go with BBQ, chicken, beef, salmon, cheeses and pretty much everything else. Holy cow it’s good with egg salad and it makes a good base for a pretty legendary tuna melt.

Variations to make your Outback Bread even better

1. Top with oats: Sprinkle oats over the tops of the loaves once you’ve sprayed them with water for a pretty top and some extra texture. Ha, you could call it “Oatback bread,” which apparently is a typing mistake I keep making as I write this!
2. Cheese it up: stir in a cup of grated sharp cheddar.
3. Maple: use maple syrup in place of the molasses for a hearty Fall flavor.

Copycat Outback bread

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• Author: Elizabeth Farr
• Total Time: 2 hours 5 minutes
• Yield: 8 small loaves 1x

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Description

Make these easy soft whole wheat loaves with just a bit of molasses that go with just about every dinner under the sun. 

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Ingredients

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• 1 and 1/4 cups warm water (295 mL)
• 2 Tablespoons molasses (30 mL)
• 2 Tablespoons soft butter (28 g)
• 2 teaspoons instant yeast
• 2 cups all-purpose flour (260 g)
• 1 and 1/2 cups whole wheat flour (195 g)
• 1/4 cup dark brown sugar (53 g)
• 2 Tablespoons cocoa powder (10 g)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• Cornmeal for the sheet tray

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Instructions

Make the dough

1. Whisk the water, molasses, butter, and yeast together in the bowl of an electric mixer.  Let the mixture stand for about 2 minutes just to allow the yeast to dissolve.
2. Mix in all the remaining ingredients into the yeast water.  Stir everything together to create a shaggy dough and then mix the dough with the dough hook attachment on low for about 5 minutes until the dough forms a ball around the hook.
3. Cover the dough to rest and rise for about 1 hour.

Shape the loaves

1. After an hour, turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface.  Divide the dough into 8 pieces with a bench scraper.
2. Line 2 sheet trays with parchment.  Scatter a little bit of cornmeal on top of the parchment.
3. Lightly pat out each piece of dough into a small rectangle about 8 inches wide.  Roll the dough over itself on the short ends to form a log that is about 8 inches long.  
   Pinch to seal the seam on the dough and tuck the ends in so that you don’t see the roll shape on the ends. Flatten the logs slightly with your hands.  
4. Repeat with the remaining pieces of dough and then set the logs on the sheet trays.  Cover with a clean kitchen towel to rest for about 30 minutes.

Bake the loaves

1. Close to the end of the 30 minutes, preheat the oven to 350 F (180 C).  Spray the loaves with water and then bake them for 20 minutes until the middle of the loaves springs back when you poke them and the tops are no longer shiny.
2. Serve the loaves warm.  Bread is best eaten the day that it is made, but you can freeze any loaves you don’t eat for up to 2 months.  Warm up frozen loaves in a 320 oven for about 15 minutes.

Equipment

Kitchen Aid

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KitchenAid Hand Mixer

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bench scraper

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Notes

Outback Bread rolls: Instead of making small loaves, cut the dough into 24 pieces.  Roll each into a ball and place in a greased 9 x 13 pan.  Bake for 20 minutes.

Outback bread croutons: Let any leftover bread sit at room temp to stale for a couple days.  Cube it up and toss the cubes in melted butter and any savory herbs you like.  Bake at 350 for 10-15 minutes on a sheet tray for the best croutons you’ve ever had.

• Prep Time: 10 minutes
• Cook Time: 25 minutes
• Category: Breads
• Method: Oven
• Cuisine: American

Nutrition

• Serving Size: half a small loaf
• Calories: 123
• Sugar: 5.1 g
• Sodium: 148.1 mg
• Fat: 2 g
• Carbohydrates: 24.1 g
• Protein: 3.2 g
• Cholesterol: 3.8 mg