Brown Bread

This weekend my husband and I decided we would attempt to have a much needed date night. However, with 5 little kids and NOTHING open we had to get creative; so we ordered some take out from one of our favorite local restaurants and rented a movie. Once we put our kids to bed, so we thought, we started our night. Literally every 5 minutes the ENTIRE movie one of our children came in needing something or crying about something else… This is why we go out for date night! 🙂 Hopefully your attempts at date night were much more successful than ours.

One of my favorite chain restaurants, I love to go to on date night, is The Cheesecake Factory. I especially love the brown bread they serve while you wait. Since it doesn’t look like any of us will be dining there for awhile, I created a copycat version of their delicious bread. Now we can all pretend we are dining out. Give it a try and tell me what you think.

To start the dough, mix the warm water, yeast and brown sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer. Let it sit for about 10 minutes to allow the yeast to proof, or get bubbly. Add the oil, molasses, honey, cocoa powder, salt and white whole wheat flour and mix until fully incorporated. Start adding the all purpose flour about 1/2 cup at a time until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and is no longer sticky. Cover the dough with a clean dish towel and let it rise for 1 1/2 hours or until it has doubled in size.

Remove the dough from the bowl and divide into 4 equal portions. Shape each portion into a small rectangular loaf and place all 4 loaves on a greased jelly roll pan. Sprinkle the tops of each with old fashioned oats, pressing gently to keep them secured to the dough. Cover and let the dough rise about 45 minutes. Bake at 350 degrees F for 25 minutes or until the internal temperature is 190 degrees F. Remove from the pan and cool on a cooling rack for about 15 minutes. Slice and enjoy!