Holey Mackerel!

Mary Mullins Original Homemade Bread
Allow 3-4 hours. Yields 2 medium sized loaves.

It worked! We didn't fail miserably!! It may even be good enough to sell because it looks pretty much perfect!!! And breathe...

My first weekend spent entirely at home in almost 2 months was graced by a vist from one of my cousin’s cousin second removed or something or other, Victoria. Somehow, after an 11 o’clock breakfast on a 90 degree day, she convinced me to attempt Mary Mullins’s famous homemade bread. We used a “reprinted by special request” recipie from the 1980 Ware’s Grove Lutheran Church Cookbook. I don’t know when it was originally printed but I’m guessing its date of conception was long before that, sometime during the early years of Alvin Leroy Mullins and Mary Elizabeth Ware’s marriage. Late 1930’s? And maybe she got it from a family member before her?

ANYways, after buying 3 new bread pans, calling several Mullins and Hewitt family members, and researching high altitude bread recipe adjustments, the baking commenced.


1/3 cup sugar
2 tsp salt
2 cups boiling water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 package active dry yeast (do NOT use rapid rise yeast at altitude!)
1/3 cup hot water (not boiling)
1 large beaten egg
3/4 cup cornmeal
3/4 cup dried milk
1 tsp garlic powder
About 4 and 1/2 cups bread flour (we need more gluten at altitude)
2 large bowls
2 small bowls
2 large bread pans
rubber spatulas
wooden spoon
cooking spray
fork
some real butter


1. In a large bowl whisk sugar and salt together.
2. Pour boiling water over sugar and salt mixture, then add oil. If need be, stir and scrape down sides until all sugar and salt is dissolved.
3. Let cool.
4. In small bowl combine yeast and hot water. For more direction on yeast, read the back of the packet ;)
5. In another small bowl whisk together cornmeal, dried milk, and garlic powder.
to the liquid mixture.
6. Add dried mixture to liquid mixture/large bowl.
7. Add beaten egg to large bowl.
8. Add yeast mixture to large bowl.
9. Add flour, about 1 cup at a time, smooshing out any clumps of dry ingredients.
*Wooden spoons with shorter handles are my best friends in bread making. They are strong and the best option for quickly and effectively starting your dough*
10. When not sticky but also not stiff, remove dough from bowl onto lightly floured surface. Knead until smooth, only adding tiny bits of flour as needed.

**Knead you say? How do I knead? My mom taught me to knead with my fisted knuckles and heels of my hands. This is my personal kneading style:
Press, press, press out the dough ball with the heels of my hands.
Fold in a third of the dough and roll the seam with my knuckles. Repeat, repeat.
Punch, punch, punch with my fists until the dough is uniformly shaped again.
Repeat, repeat, repeat whole process until smooth!**


11. Spray the inside of a second, clean large bowl with cooking oil.
12. Place dough into the sprayed bowl and press into bottom. Flip dough over so both sides have a bit of oil on them.
13. Tightly cover dough bowl with plastic wrap and set in a warm place with no drafts to rise.
14. When dough has doubled in size (ours took about an hour and a half) punch down and divide into 2 equally sized dough balls.
15. Roll and mold each dough ball in your hands a bit to elongate it into more of a rectangular, pan shape.
15. Spray the insides of 2 large bread pans.
16. Place a dough ball in each of the pans. Press into bottom and then flip over so both sides have a bit of oil on them.
18. Re-cover tightly with plastic wrap and let rise until dough is pushing against it (ours took about 30 minutes).
19. Turn on oven to 350 degrees.
20. Punch down dough in each pan.
21. Poke rows of holes in the dough with a fork.
22. Bake for 45 minutes, rotating pans half way through.
23. After removing from oven, turn out loaves onto cooling rack.
24. Brush tops of loaves with butter and eat warm, as toast, or with sandwiches!



It sure smelled like Grandma’s bread, and it pretty much tasted like it too. But the texture was 100% different. Was it my Omega-3 oil? Less air pressure? Extra yellow corm meal? Failure to punch down and let rise a third time? Who knows. We didn’t really care anyway, which was obvious when we were already down half a loaf only 12 hours later ;)