Sweet Brown Molasses Bread

This Sweet Brown Molasses Bread recipe is the most requested bread for sandwiches in my household. That’s because this brown bread is a partial whole wheat bread that’s soft and a little sweet.

Read on to learn all about the molasses and the detailed tips and tricks for this molasses bread recipe. Or just grab your apron, hit that Jump to Recipe button, and let’s make a sweet brown bread!

Ingredients

A few years ago, a friend passed along a copycat sweet brown bread recipe from the Outback Steakhouse. It brought back some fond memories, but it was just too sweet and soft. So I’ve adapted this sweet brown bread recipe for everyday eating.

It’s the favorite sandwich bread in my house. And we eat a LOT of sandwiches.

Molasses

Molasses is the thick syrup by-product of sugar production. It comes in many forms – sulfured and unsulfured, light and dark. Read everything you need to know about molasses here.

An unsulfured light molasses works best in this molasses bread. If you only have a dark or blackstrap molasses, you might want to consider adding another tablespoon of your favorite sweetener to counteract the bitterness.

Whole wheat flour

Using some whole wheat flour in this recipe makes your sweet brown bread more nutritious while keeping it soft. You can use all bread flour if you want an even fluffier loaf, or increase the amount of whole wheat flour if you are an experienced bread baker. I find that a ratio of a quarter to a half, like in this honey wheat bread with wheat germ, is perfect.

Yeast

Instant yeast is the easiest to work with. But you can pretty much use whatever yeast you’re most comfortable working with when making bread.

Also for convenience, the recipe calls for using a packet (just over 2 teaspoons) of that instant yeast, but you’re the one in control. Unless you’re in a hurry (e.g. you’re a contestant on the Great British Bake Off), you can nearly always use less yeast in your bread recipes.

Smaller amounts of yeast are important when time is the most critical flavor producer in your bread recipe. This molasses brown bread doesn’t need it, but you should definitely do a slow proof with bread recipes whose flavor depends only on flour, yeast, and salt – like my overnight pizza dough.

How to riff on this molasses bread recipe

• Try out other sweeteners, like an equal amount of honey or dark brown sugar.
• Skip the cocoa or coffee powder. They’re in this sweet brown bread mostly for color anyway.
• Use a dark beer in place of water for a malty flavor like in my Guinness soda bread.
• Make a spiral loaf like this marble rye bread! Make half of the dough without cocoa and coffee powder, and use black cocoa in the other half. After the first rise, roll out the two doughs, spiral them together, and let the swirled bread loaf rise in the pan.

Recipe tips and tricks

This molasses bread has three stages – a sponge and two rises. To make the sponge, mix half of the yeast with a cup and a quarter of whole wheat flour, coffee granules, cocoa, molasses, and water (Panel #1, below). The remaining flour and yeast is added (Panel #2), and you let it sit until it starts to bubble through (Panel #3). Mix and knead the dough and shape into a round for the first rise (Panel #4). You can knead the dough by hand instead of in the mixer, but I’m too lazy for that.

Tip from the wise quacker: if you use a mixer to make bread, make sure you switch to the hook once your dough has come together. Otherwise you run the risk of burning out your motor (and I say this from experience!).

Let your molasses bread rise until it has doubled in size. If you’re not doing a cold proof, the best temperature for bread to rise is 75 to 80 degrees in a draft-free place. If your kitchen is cooler than this, you can put your bread in your oven that you turned on low for just a minute. Or put a cup of water in the microwave, heat it for a couple of minutes, then quickly open the door and put in your bread dough.

Once your molasses bread has doubled in size, shape it into a loaf and put it in a greased loaf pan for the final rise. Here’s a great video showing how to shape loaf bread.

Cover the pan with plastic wrap and again let it rise. Heat your oven so you can start baking when it has risen to about one inch over the edge of your loaf pan.

Bake for about 30 minutes, until the internal temperature is 195 degrees Fahrenheit and it gives a hollow sound when thumped. Let cool at least an hour before slicing!

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