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Outback Steakhouse doesn't unveil the recipe for their bread, but Copycat Version of Outback Steakhouse Bread Recipe lists

Ingredients

  • 3 packages dry yeast
  • 1 1/2 cups warm water (divided)
  • 1 tablespoon sugar
  • 1/2 cup dark molasses
  • 1 tablespoon salt
  • 2 tablespoons neutral oil (vegetable or canola)
  • 2 cups rye flour
  • 2 1/2 to 3 cups all-purpose flour

What happens if I must eschew the sugar and molasses for medical reasons? I don't care if the color changes.

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2 Answers 2

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The taste will change. It will not taste sweet at all, so it wouldn't really be a copy cat recipe any more. It will rise slower. Yeast feeds on sugar, so if you omit the sugar it will only feed on the carbs from the flour and hence rise much slower. And it will likely be less dense. In my experience, adding molasses to a dough makes it denser. It may also become too dry. The molasses especially is a large enough ingredient that omitting it will affect the hydration level of the dough.

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    Your point that the yeast will have to feed on flour carbohydrates is correct, but I must say that in my experience, the effect is not large enough to produce a noticeable slowing down of fermentation. For me, recipes with and without sugars rise in the same time, or rather, are affected by other parameters such as temperature and initial yeast amount.
    – rumtscho
    Apr 3, 2020 at 10:52
  • @rumtscho could diastatic malt powder help by breaking down more of the starches more quickly into simpler sugars available to the yeast and for sweet flavor? Apr 3, 2020 at 13:47
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    @pleasePassTheCheese diastatic malt powder is frequently used in bread if you want the specific flavor profile it gives. There is no need for it to "help" the yeast, because yeast functions great in unsweetened bread already, so if there is any effect there, it is tiny in comparison to normal rising.
    – rumtscho
    Apr 3, 2020 at 14:32
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The proportion of sugar in that recipe is trivially low. Leave it out if you like. It won't make a noticeable difference.

The molasses is a bigger concern. That's a huge amount of molasses for such a recipe. It's the dominant flavor, even up against the rye.

You haven't said why you're "shunning" molasses, so any potential substitution (date syrup and barley malt syrup come to mind) would be speculation. But you do need to substitute something for it, or you'll just have rye bread.

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  • "You haven't said why you're "shunning" molasses". Medical reasons.
    – user91594
    Apr 6, 2020 at 14:39
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    @Vast That's not an answer which enables us to suggest reasonable substitutions.
    – Sneftel
    Apr 6, 2020 at 15:33

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