Steak-house Style Brown Bread is a homemade, perfect, dark and delicious bread. It is slightly sweet, with a chewy crust and tender crumb that is great buttered, warm, right out of the oven, or soaking up your favorite sauce or soup.
How to Bake Homemade Steak-house Style Brown Bread With a Tender Crumb
Making Steak-house Style Brown Bread is easy, and it actually takes less time for me to mix the ingredients and allow the bread to start to rise than it takes to go to the local store and buy bread. It is very rewarding to make homemade bread and can be done in a few hours with very little “hands-on” effort.
Now doesn’t that look delicious buttered warm from the oven
I wanted to come up with a recipe for a really delicious brown bread and, I love this one. A restaurant by me has these fresh loaves in their salad bar and you can cut your own fresh slice with dinner. I know some other copy cat recipes use rye or oat flour but this is my interpretation of one I have tasted many times. I could just eat this Steak-house Style Brown Bread for a whole meal. Just saying. I could. With no remorse or guilt.
This recipe is spot on to what I want, because this bread does not come out tough or overly chewy and has awesome flavor. Some brown breads that have molasses have a very molasses taste. Some are kind of bitter, some very dry or dense, but this one is perfect.
If you love baking bread or would like to try other bread recipes here are some good ones to try:
- Easy Challah Bread
- French Brioche Recipe
- The Wonder Of Making Homemade Bread
- Easy Swirled Herb And Garlic Bread
Types Of Flours To Choose From
Why is it important to pay attention to the flour we use?
There are a ton of flours out there—not just your everybody knows about all-purpose flour. There is pastry flour, bread flour, whole wheat flour and cake flour too . But what’s the difference between all-purpose flour and bread flour?
“Protein content is the primary differentiator in flours. High-protein wheat varieties (10 to 14 percent protein) are classed as “hard wheat.” Low-protein wheats (5 to 10 percent) are known as “soft wheat.” Simply put: More protein equals more gluten equals more strength. And more strength translates into more volume and a chewier texture. Doughs made from high-protein flours are both more elastic (stretch further) and more extensible (hold their shape better) — desirable qualities in bread and many other yeasted products where a firm structure is paramount, but undesirable in pastries and cakes, where the goal is flakiness or tenderness. ” https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/packages/baking-guide/flour-101-guide-to-different-types-and-uses
All-purpose flour
Wheat berries have three parts, the bran, the endosperm and the germ.
Standard AP flour is a white flour, meaning the wheat grains (called wheatberries) have been stripped of their bran and germ during processing and grinding, leaving just the starchy endosperm. That means that most AP flours are more shelf stable because, yes, flour goes bad. It can become rancid. With this kind of processing it also means, unfortunately, that most of the nutritive properties of the wheat have been removed.
The protein content of AP flours are standardized during processing to between 9% and 11%, depending on the brand and type of wheat used. The amount of protein corresponds to how much gluten is formed when flour comes into contact with water. Gluten gives baked goods structure—the more gluten, the “stronger” the flour.
It is an appropriate choice for most baked goods like cakes, cookies, muffins, pie crust, See? It has all purposes, hence the name.
Bread flour
The main difference between bread flour and all-purpose flour is a matter of protein. Bread flour, which comes in white and whole wheat varieties, has a higher protein content than all-purpose, usually 11-13%.
It’s called “bread flour” because most bread requires higher amounts of protein to produce lots of gluten. Gluten is the stringy strands that give bread dough its stretch and elasticity, and baked bread its characteristic chew.
Wheat flour
“Whole wheat flour is made from hard red spring or winter wheat. All three layers of the wheat berries are ground — the bran, germ, and endosperm — to result in a bold, wholesome flour. If you were to take these wheat varieties, strip them of their nutty-tasting, fiber-rich bran and germ, and grind just the endosperm, you’d get all-purpose flour.
Whole-wheat flour can be used interchangeably for white whole-wheat flour called for in a recipe, or it can be substituted for half the amount of all-purpose flour in a recipe.” https://www.thekitchn.com/whats-the-difference-between-whole-wheat-and-white-whole-wheat-flour-236647
What flour is used in this Steak-house Brown Bread?
We used bread flour and whole wheat flour. It makes the initial dough very heavy or dense, hence the reason there is extra yeast in this recipe. But when allowed to rise the proper amount of time your are left with a very light tender crumb. Using bread flour instead of all- purpose flour gives the crust an extra chew which you want in a brown bread. This combination is perfect giving you the proper amount of gluten formation for a tender crumb and chewy crust.
Don’t be surprised that the recipe calls for cocoa flour. You will not taste the cocoa but again it adds to that traditional flavor. It has a slight sweetness that I love.
Sugar and Yeast Get it all started
This recipe calls for a tablespoon of granulated sugar to start the yeast activation. The yeast feeds on the sugar. It has honey and brown sugar as well to add just the right amount of sweetness. I used dark cocoa powder and dark brown sugar to add depth of color to make a richly colored brown bread. No added dyes!
I hope you love this recipe. I think it is perfect and I have tried enough recipes to know.
This recipe makes 4 small loaves. If you don’t want to make the small loaves you can easily adjust the recipe and make two loaves. Form them and place them in a greased loaf pan. Bake for about 45 minutes and until a thermometer reads 190 degrees. The thermometer is the exact right way to make sure your bread is baked properly.
To make Steak-house Style Brown Bread you will need
warm water 100°-110°F
granulated sugar
active dry instant yeast
honey
dark brown sugar packed
molasses
bread flour
whole wheat flour
dark cocoa powder
In the kitchen aid stand mixer fitted with a paddle hook, mix together the water 1 tbsp of granulated sugar and yeast and stir. Let yeast proof a few minutes( allow it to foam.) this gives the bread a heads start in rising.
Add honey, brown sugar, and molasses until mixed well.
In a large bowl add the bread flour, wheat flour, cocoa powder, and salt and mix
Gradually add the flour mixture to the stand mixer bowl. Mix together until combined
Switch out the paddle attachment for the hook attachment and run to knead the dough for about five minutes until dough is very smooth and elastic.
Place it on a floured board and continue kneeding the dough for another minute or two making sure the dough is smooth and elastic which means the gluten strands have formed and dough is ready to rise. Form it into a round ball
Place In a large bowl that has been greased
Place dough in bowl and flip over so the dough is covered with cooking spray so it doesn’t dry out
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place dough in fridge overnight to rest and rise. If you do an overnight rise in the morning remove the dough from the bowl and form into loaves. (The dough will be cold and take a long time to warm up and rise to the proper height ready to bake. Anywhere from 2-3)
Dough has risen enough when you press your finger into the dough and the dent stays. Place on floured surface
First cut the ball of dough into four pieces. Then form into loaves.
Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper, and set aside.
Divide the dough into 4 pieces. Shape the dough into 4 logs. Place the loaves on the prepared baking sheets.
Loosely cover the dough with a kitchen or tea towel and place in a warm spot and let the dough rise until doubled, about 2 hours.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Bake for about 30 minutes or until a thermometer reads 190 degrees F. Remove form the oven .
Place on cooling racks after removing from oven so the bread cools completely and does not get a soft, soggy bottom.
Now isn’t that easy and delicious!
Items you might need for this recipe
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Steak-house Style Brown Bread
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cup warm water 100°-110°F
- 1 tbsp granulated sugar
- 2 tbsp active dry instant yeast
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1/4 cup dark brown sugar packed
- 2 Tablespoons molasses
- 2 1/2 cups bread flour
- 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
- 2 Tablespoons dark cocoa powder
Instructions
- In the kitchen aid stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix together the water 1 tbsp granulated sugar and yeast and stir. Let yeast proof a few minutes ( allow it to foam.) this gives the bread a heads start in rising.
- Add honey, brown sugar, and molasses and mix
- In a large bowl add the bread flour, wheat flour, cocoa powder, and salt and mix to combine
- Gradually add the flour mixture to the stand mixer bowl. Mixing while adding the flour until combined
- With the paddle attachment attachment continue to mix, kneading the dough for about five minutes until dough is very smooth and elastic.
- Place it on a floured board and continue kneading the dough for another minute or two making sure the dough is smooth and elastic which means the gluten strands have formed and the dough is ready to rise. Form it into a round ball
- Place In a large bowl that has been greased
- Place dough in bowl and flip over so the dough is covered with cooking spray so it doesn’t dry out
- At this point you can either allow the dough to rise in a warm spot in the kitchen or allow the dough to rise n the refridgerator overnight.
- If you allow the dough to rise in a warm spot right away cover with a kitchen towel and allow dough to rise for about 1-2 hours until the dough has doubled in size. Then continue to instructions to form the loaves
- Cover the bowl with a kitchen towel if rising right away.
- If you want to continue the next day cover the dough with plastic wrap and place dough in fridge overnight to rest and rise.
- If you do an overnight rise, in the morning remove the dough from the bowl and form into 4 loaves. The dough will be cold and take a long time to warm up and rise to the proper height ready to bake. Anywhere from 2-3 hours
- Line 2 baking sheets with parchmen paper, and set aside.
- Divide the dough into 4 pieces. Shape the dough into 4 logs. Place the loaves on the prepared baking sheets.
- Loosely cover the dough with a kitchen or tea towel and place in a warm spot and let the dough rise until doubled, about 2 hours. Because the dough is heavy be patient and let the yeast do it's work. It may take time to rise to the proper height. Dough is ready to bake when you take your finger and press on the dough. If the indentaion stays it is ready. If it bounces back wait longer and test again.
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
- Bake for about 25- 30 minutes or until a thermometer reads 190 degrees F
- Place on cooling racks after removing from oven so the bread cools completely and does not get a soft, soggy bottom.
- Allow bread to cool smlightly before slicing
Notes
Nutrition
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WELCOME
My name is Mary. Here at The Recipe Patch you will find a garden full of recipes to make life easy and delicious. I hope you find a new recipe to share with your friends and family. There is something for every occasion…. Let’s get to work… or play
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Dough is too soft. Does the recipe really call for 2 1/2 cups water?
Hi Sylvia. Yes. Though it seems like a lot the dough is very soft but when it rises it balances out. Additional flour on your board after the first rise when you shape the loaves helps and ends up with a very soft and light texture instead of a heavy dense loaf. Accurate measuring of flour is important as you probably already know. I hope this helps.
Can you freeze the dough?
Yes Regina you can. In the recipe notes I added instructions how to freeze.
The bread freezes well – Wrap with plastic wrap after bread has completely cooled after baking.
You have the option of freezing the dough after you have formed the loaves before the last rise. Remove from freezer the day you want to bake and allow to come to room temperature and then allow the loaves to rise for the second rise.
I hope this helps.
Best to you,
Mary