Honey Wheat Brushman Bread

When Dan and I first started dating, we celebrated every little event by going out to dinner. Now that we lived through job loss and tough times, we are very conservative with how we spend our money. We save going out to dinner for the occassional date night when DJ goes to his Nana's house and we get the chance to go to dinner and see a movie. I knew that I wanted to celebrate Dan's last day of work until the New Year, but going out to dinner just isn't in our budget after Christmas. I received America's Most Wanted Recipes for Christmas and knew that it was the perfect opportunity. After doing some flipping of pages, I found a recipe for Outback's honey wheat brushman bread. It was absolutely fabulous. Enjoy! The recipe makes a ton of bread. I was able to get two loaves of it and am so glad that I have a whole one left! 

Ingredients

1 ½ cup warm water

½ cup honey

2 ¼ teaspoon (1 envelope) active dry yeast

1 tablespoon sugar

2 tablespoons butter, softened

2 cups bread flour, plus extra

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

2 teaspoons instant coffee powder

1 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons cornmeal, for dusting

whipped butter, for serving

Directions

(If you have a bread machine, place all ingredients in bread machine except cornmeal and whipped butter and let the machine work its magic and skip to step number 3.)

1.) Combine water, honey, sugar, and yeast into bowl. Stir to combine and allow yeast to activate for 5 to 10 minutes.

2.) Combine butter, flours, cocoa powder, coffee powder, and salt. Combine all ingredients together until dough becomes tacky, but not sticky, approximately 8 to 10 minutes.

3.) Let dough rise for one hour.

4.) Punch down and divide into up to eight portions.

5.) Sprinkle with cornmeal. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise for another hour.

6.) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

7.) Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Bread is done when it reads 210 degrees on an instant read thermometer placed into the center of the bread.

8.) Serve warm with whipped butter.

Source: adapted from America’s Most Wanted Recipes, 2009.