A Newton Baking Tradition Comes to Nonantum

Karen Blacker had big dreams of artisan breads.

But they were dreams that she simply couldn't realize at Blacker's Bakeshop, the popular bakery she and her husband, Richard, opened in Newton Centre five years ago.

"I've wanted to make artisan breads for five years," Blacker explains. "They're so beautiful to look at... they're wonderful..." she trails off as she looks around at the stacks of artisan bread now surrounding her at Blacker's Bread Basket, the new bakery location the Blackers opened earlier this month in Nonantum.

At long last, Karen Blacker is able to expand her love of baking into the warm and flavorful world of artisan breads.

The Blackers aren't exactly new to the Nonantum location at 140R (Rear) Adams St., nor is the location itself new to the world of bakeries. 

Karen Blacker said that customers and neighbors to the shop have revealed bits and pieces of the location's history -- for one thing, it's operated as a bakery for decades. 

"Everyone knows there's a bakery here," Blacker says, explaining that customers come in full of stories and memories of visiting the various iterations of bakeries that have existed at the spot over the years.

In fact, it's the shop's history as a bakery that led the Blacker's there in the first place. They began renting the space in September 2012 as a fully equipped and kosher kitchen in which to bake the pastries, challah and other products they were selling at their small Newton Centre shop.

"Every time I drove by, I wondered what it was like inside," Karen Blacker remembers, explaining that it sat vacant for about 18-24 months prior to their renting the fully equipped space.

As the bakers took to baking in the location's back room, Karen Blacker recounts, customers began arriving at the storefront portion of the shop asking to buy the bread they could smell browning in the ovens.

After several months, the Blackers decided they were already renting the space, so why not sell some of their renowned products right in Nonantum? And with that, Blacker's Bread Basket was born.

The shop's soft opening on June 12 slowly introduced the community to the high quality kosher/pareve products the Blackers have become known for. But in addition to being a dairy-free kosher bakery, Karen Blacker describes the operation as "neurotically nut-free."

"It is a Jewish bakery, but I have a tremendous amount of dairy-free and nut-free customers," she insists.

Blacker happily recounts the moment a mother and her dairy-allergic son came into Blacker's Bakeshop and learned that the shop could create the boy's first-ever professional, dairy-free birthday cake.

"The mother started crying, the boy was crying and, pretty soon, everyone in the shop was tearing up," Blacker remembers.

The customers are critically important to Karen Blacker. With Blacker's Bread Basket, she's spending the first several weeks just determining what it is the customers are looking for.

"We're seeing what works," she says. "We want to provide the community with something they want."

And that begins with expanding into those artisan breads Blacker has been dreaming of. Country French loaves with assorted add-ins like raisins, cranberries and seeds; sourdough; rye; pumpernickel; a variety of baguettes; Italian boules; 100 percent whole wheat; and, of course, the challah that is the masterpiece of the Blacker's bakery name.

"Challah is the original artisan bread," Karen Blacker says smiling.

Check out the Blacker's Bakeshop website for hours and product listings for both bakery locations.