You know how when you go to a restaurant and they set down a basket of brown bread rolls you instantly feel like the occasion is extra special? Sure, I love Cheesecake Factory because they specialize in my favorite dessert, but it’s also partially because their rolls are the best.

The following post may contain affiliate links. If you click a link and make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra charge to you. To learn more about this, please visit my Disclaimer page. Thank you for your continued support!

A few years ago, I was having the whole family to Hubs’ and my apartment for Thanksgiving, and despite our lack of a table, I was determined to make the best damn dinner anyone had ever had. It didn’t matter that we were balancing our plates on our laps sitting on the couch. I still wanted it to be fancy.

Part of that was making a batch of pillowy, sweet, semi-chocolatey, whole grain, brown bread rolls. The other part was a crockpot of mulled cranberry wine that nobody but me drank. And that *hiccup* is why I’m only sharing one of those recipes with you.

All purpose flour, rye flour, wheat flour, and cocoa powder in a mixing bowl.

Getting the Right Ratio of Flours

This recipe calls for whole wheat, all purpose, and rye flours. Whole wheat is nutty and hearty. Rye is a tad bitter, which balances and enhances the bitter-sweetness of the molasses (which we’ll get to later). The problem is that neither of these whole grain flours likes to develop gluten.

When your bread dough doesn’t have a strong gluten structure, it doesn’t really do a lot. You get a tough bread that doesn’t want to rise, that crumbles instead of stretches, and that is really awful to eat.

That’s why I would deign to mix in all purpose flour. Now, why all purpose as opposed to bread flour? Part of the reason is accessibility. Sure, if you’re at the store buying wheat and rye flour, you have the opportunity to buy bread flour, too, but I’m on a budget, so…

And reason number two is that bread flour, while great at building gluten is called “strong flour” for a reason. It makes for a chewy and hearty structure. We need our white flour addition to provide tenderness and aid in developing a pillowy texture where wheat and rye can’t create on their own.

So, we’re looking at 1.25 parts wheat flour to 1 (ish) part white flour to 0.5 parts rye flour. The amount of white flour will vary based on how much flour your dough requires in the kneading phase.

How to Make Cheesecake Factory Brown Bread Rolls

Flavoring Your Brown Bread Rolls

The other ingredients in the brown bread rolls are cocoa powder, molasses, sugar, and salt. As you may already know, sugar feeds your little yeasties so they wake up ready to work. In this case, we’re using molasses and sugar to do the job.

Sugar alone works great, but molasses joins the party to bring in color and flavor as well as sweetness. Paired with rye, though, molasses brings forward that note of bitterness that balances the sweetness and makes the flavor of brown bread rolls so interesting.

Additionally, we’re adding in just a little bit of cocoa powder. While wheat and rye flours and molasses will make them kind of brown, cocoa powder will really punch up the dark color. But will they taste chocolatey? Only a little bit.

If you have a very refined palate, you may detect the earthy tones of cocoa in your rolls. However, to the unaware eater, they will taste only the nutty, earthy, bittersweet combination ingredients and wonder what the secret is.

Brown bread rolls cooling on a rack, with some in a basket and one cut and buttered to the side.

How to Knead a Dough with Rye Flour

Admittedly, I learned a lot from the Great British Bake-Off and Alton Brown about the finicky nature of a rye dough. You do have to combine it with another flour if you want it to form gluten before your arms fall off from kneading. We’ve already addressed that, though.

You will still find yourself kneading dough for 10 minutes and starting to feel out of breath (unless your an athlete; then, just ignore me and my out-of-shape perspective).

Note that I’ve accounted for UP TO a quarter of a cup of flour being kneaded in. The goal is not to use all that extra flour, but just to help you with the sticking. One way you can reduce the amount of added flour and get the right texture is Joshua Weissman’s “patented” slap-and-fold method.

You’ll lift the dough, rotating it 90º, slap it down, and flop/fold the top over on itself. He tweeted a video of this process. Sound on if you don’t mind the gross noise of slapping bread dough.

https://twitter.com/therealweissman/status/1093881364494106624?s=20

Credit: Joshua Weissman @therealweissman

Seriously, though. Did you see how it went from super sticky to almost compliant in about 30 seconds? Okay. That’s bread dough without wheat and rye flours. These flavorful nuisances will require a bit longer. Don’t lose heart (or patience). Just enjoy the rhythm of the beat… may be put on some music to knead to.

Double Proofing Your Brown Bread Rolls

Something else you’ll notice about this recipe is the double proofing. They go first for 2 hours, and then you punch it down and do it again. What does this accomplish?

Double proofing your dough is going to give the flavors in your bread more time to marry and develop. It also generally works to lighten the texture of your dough, which is much needed in a rye-wheat dough. Remember, we’re here for pillowy brown bread.

The double proof, in this case, is needed because we proof it first en masse, but secondly as individual rolls. You knock the air out of the dough when you form the rolls, and the dough needs a chance to puff back up.

If you really feel the need, you can go three times. I’ve done this recipe where I punched it down at 2 hours and let it go another 2 hours. Then, I formed the dough balls and let them rise for 1 hour. They came out just as fluffy.

How to Tell if You’ll Have Tough Rolls

If you’re kneading the dough, and it’s the consistency of clay or pie dough, then it’s not going to turn out right. I hate tossing food because it’s wasteful, especially when it’s something like this with ingredients you’ve bought specifically for the recipe.

But, with this brown bread rolls recipe, if the dough is tough and gritty and not forming nice smooth gluten strands, your rolls aren’t going to come out right. You might want to toss the dough and start over.

Or, if you’re afraid of being wasteful, go ahead finish the recipe. Bake them up, cut them up, dry them, and turn them into bread crumbs. I’ve actually served them up anyway because, “hey, what the heck.” No one was that mad. They were still delicious, just “hearty.”

To Achieve Pillowy Soft Brown Bread Rolls…

The first key here is to measure your flour right. Yes, I use volume here because not everyone has a kitchen scale. So, the important thing to note is that you should never measure packed flour.

Fluff it up and then spoon it into the measuring cup. Then, level it off by scraping a knife across the cup, removing the excess.

To really make sure you’re making the best dough, you really do want it to be a sticky dough. I know this is hard to knead and you’ll be tempted to keep adding flour until it doesn’t stick to your hands.

The reason this doesn’t work is that all that added flour just sits there, gumming up your roll. If it’s been added late in the game, it hasn’t been hydrated or worked into the gluten structure like the flour added initially.

You want to work a sticky dough until it’s smooth and supple, tacky, but no longer sticking to your hands. In doing this, you’re creating a stretchy, elastic structure that will expand with the gas created by the yeast. The expansion is what give you pillowy softness.

Close up of a split brown bread roll with butter on it

So, if you’re excited to serve some brown bread rolls the likes of which are rarely seen beyond Cheesecake Factory and Outback Steakhouse, let’s get baking. The recipe is just below, and I wish you luck!

Please comment below and leave a rating if you’ve tried these rolls, and don’t forget to subscribe for a really neat meal and grocery planning worksheet.