Outback brings a small dark loaf to the table on its own board before anything else arrives, with whipped butter beside it. It is almost black on the outside, soft and faintly sweet inside, and it is the one thing on the table that costs nothing. People ask for a second one more often than they order dessert.
It is also the dish most worth making at home, for a reason that has nothing to do with money. You cannot order it to go in any reliable way, the loaf is at its best about ten minutes out of the oven, and a bread this soft does not survive a drive. The restaurant version has a head start that no takeaway container can preserve.
The thing that trips up most copycat attempts is colour. Honey and wholemeal flour alone give you a tan loaf, not a near-black one, and people respond by adding more molasses until the bread turns bitter and dense. The colour comes from three things working together, and one of them is instant coffee, which you will not taste in the finished loaf.
Nothing below needs a stand mixer or a proving drawer. It needs about two and a half hours, most of which is the dough sitting somewhere warm doing nothing.
Why This Recipe Works
Four decisions separate this from a brown dinner roll:
- •Colour is built from three sources, not one. Molasses brings depth, cocoa brings brown without sweetness, and instant coffee darkens the crumb further while sharpening the other two. Chasing the same colour with molasses alone means roughly three times as much, and at that point the loaf tastes of treacle and the yeast struggles in the sugar.
- •Bread flour, not plain. The dough carries a lot of sugar and fat, both of which weaken gluten, so it needs the extra protein to hold a soft open crumb rather than collapsing into something cakey.
- •The loaves are shaped small and baked on cornmeal. Eight small logs give you far more crust for the same dough, which is the texture contrast the whole thing rests on, and the cornmeal is what makes the base read as a bakery loaf rather than a tray bake.
- •The butter is whipped, not softened. Beating air into it for a full two minutes roughly doubles the volume and changes how it behaves on hot bread: it melts in rather than sliding off. This is a bigger part of the restaurant experience than people expect.
How to Make It
Dissolve, then mix. Coffee and molasses into the warm water with the yeast, ten minutes until foamy, then in with the cocoa, flours, salt and melted butter. The dough should stay tacky.
Knead and prove. Eight to ten minutes by hand, until a pinch stretches thin without tearing. An hour somewhere warm until roughly doubled.
Shape eight logs on cornmeal. Divide into eight, roll into five-inch logs, and sit them well apart on a cornmeal-dusted tray for a second rise of forty-five minutes.
Bake and whip the butter. 22 to 25 minutes at 350F, to 190F inside. Beat the butter with honey and salt for two full minutes while they bake.
Tips for the Best Results
- •Too pale after baking? It is almost never the oven. Add a teaspoon more cocoa and another of coffee next time rather than more molasses, which darkens slowly and turns the loaf bitter long before it turns black.
- •The dough freezes well after shaping. Freeze the logs on the tray, bag them, and bake from frozen with ten minutes added. Baked loaves go stale fast, so freezing the dough beats freezing the bread.
- •No instant coffee? Replace the water with the same amount of cold brewed coffee, cooled to warm. Espresso powder works too, at about half the quantity.
- •For a single large loaf, bake 35 to 40 minutes instead and expect a softer result. You lose crust, which is the trade.
- •A pan of boiling water on the oven floor for the first ten minutes gives a slightly chewier crust. Not what the restaurant does, but an improvement if you like that.
- •If you are building the rest of an Outback dinner at home, the prices on the Outback menu show what the same meal costs out, and our Texas Roadhouse against Outback comparison covers which chain is cheaper dish by dish.
Make Ahead & Storage
Best the day it is baked. Two days in a paper bag at room temperature, and do not use a plastic one, which traps steam and softens the crust you worked for. Baked loaves freeze for three months wrapped tight. Refresh them for five minutes in a 350F oven straight from frozen. Better still, freeze the shaped dough before baking and have fresh bread on twenty-five minutes notice.
What to Serve It With
At the restaurant it arrives before anything else, with whipped butter and nothing beside it. At home it earns its place next to a steak, a bowl of chilli, or soup, and it makes a better sandwich the next day than it has any right to. The rest of the steakhouse dinner is priced out on our Outback menu page, and the other copycat recipes cover a few of the mains it goes with.
