Newfoundland Homemade Bread

Using a video of Mrs. Anita McCann making "Newfoundland Homemade Bread" (filmed/edited by her son, Kevin McCann), my natural tinkering has come up with some experimental varieties. ;)

The basic recipe is:

• Yeast:
  
  • 1 packet of active dry yeast dissolved in
    
  • 1/2 c. warm water, with
    
  • 1 tsp. sugar [organic evaporated cane]
  
  
• 3.5 lbs flour [I estimate 10 cups]
  
• 1/2 tsp. salt
  
• 1/4 c. sugar [organic evaporated cane]
  
• butter "the size of an egg" [soy butter works just fine]
  
• water (to achieve consistency)
  
  
• For a sweet bread:
  
  • 1/2 c. molasses
    
  • raisins

Allow to rise, lightly sealed with "butter" and covered with plastic wrap and towels, in the mixing bowl for 90 minutes. Then divide into 9 parts to make 3 loaf pans of 3 balls each. Lightly seal with "butter" and recover. Rise for another hour or so. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes (check a little earlier for sweet bread version). Consult the video for more complete instructions.

Variations:

• Multigrain.
  Experiment with switching out portions of the flour with other flours. I've played with using dark rye, millet (gluten-free), and oat flours. These heavier flours make a heavier bread, though, and the dough does not rise quite as easily. Still good, but makes a denser bread. So far, I've kept at least 1/2 the flour as regular all-purpose flour, though.
  
• Cranberry.
  Another variation was using the sweet version, but using dried cranberries in lieu of raisins. Also added some chopped walnuts. Substituted 2 c. of the regular flour with dark rye. Added 1/4 c. ground flax seeds for some extra omegas.
  
• Olive Bread.
  This was fun. Added about 4 chopped up kalamata olives from a jar, a Tbsp of minced garlic, garlic powder, Herbs de Provence, and lavender pepper. Flour mix was 5 c. all-purpose flour, 2 c. dark rye, 2 c. millet, and 1 c. oat flour.