Rachel Mumme makes many different kinds of sourdough bread. Courtesy | Wikimedia Commons

When Rachel Mumme, wife of Hillsdale Associate Professor of Theology Jonathan Mumme, discovered her daughter suffered from a yeast allergy, she became motivated to bake her own sourdough bread. Mumme didn’t want her daughter to feel left out from eating foods the rest of her family could eat. Neither did she want to give up on eating one of her favorite foods. Mumme said she discovered her child could eat sourdough without suffering from an allergic reaction.

“I didn’t want to live without bread forever,” she said.

Mumme said she started baking sourdough at home, before selling her bread to others. She said her family spent five years living in Germany, which helped to develop her bread-making abilities. After her family moved to Michigan in 2022, she started selling her bread in Hillsdale.

“We ate a lot of bread there, and it was all delicious,” Mumme said. “When we came back to the states, we realized there’s no comparison between the two. So I figured out how to make bread, which morphed into sourdough.”

Over time, Mumme said she discovered how to turn sourdough into many different kinds of bread. She read all the books she could find about baking sourdough, a process involving plenty of trial and error.

Now Mumme’s company even has a website called “Hillsdale Hearth.” She delivers around 25 loaves of fresh-baked bread each week and can be reached for special orders with the email address rachel@hillsdalehearth.com.

“With four children and healthy appetites, we go through a lot of bread,” she said.

Hillsdale Hearth customer and self-proclaimed “Rachel Mumme bread evangelist,” Julie McClay said Mumme’s bread is almost magical.

“I have a real sensitivity to gluten. I can eat her bread and so it’s this wonderful world opened up to me,” she said.

She belongs to a farm share, which is how she first heard about Hillsdale Hearth. In a farm share, a group pays a certain amount of money to hold a share in whatever a local farm produces for a season, McClay said.

She said her share brings in samples from around the surrounding Hillsdale community like local honey. One time the share included a loaf of Mumme’s bread, and the rest, for McClay, is history.

“This is going to sound like a lot of bread. I usually purchase three regular loaves a week, and one bake of the week each week,” McClay said.

As stated on Mumme’s website, each week features a special bake of the week which features a different type of bread.

McClay said she tells people how good Mumme’s bread is at every opportunity.

“Everybody just absolutely loves this bread, so I keep some in the freezer, just for hospitality,” McClay said. “Give it a try. You won’t regret it.”

Like McClay, junior Alba Padron said she has food sensitivities.

“I love Mumme’s freshly milled and baked bread, as it is one of the few I can tolerate without issues,” Padron said.

Padron said she loves supporting a local baker. She said she has experienced working in a bakery firsthand and understands the amount of work that goes into making quality bread.

Padron first discovered Mumme’s bread during her freshman year of college. She remembers attending the Mumme’s house for an Easter lunch, where Padron enjoyed Hillsdale Hearth bread for the first time.

“Mrs. Mumme’s bread is delicious and worth every dollar,” Padron said. “It is much higher quality than any commercial bread.”

Mumme said she loves getting to know her customers, many of whom eventually become her friends.

“It’s not just this nameless loaf of bread for somebody, but my friend stopping by to pick up bread,” she said.