Lao started baking when she had children with food allergies. (Anika Chang Garcia / Heights Staff)
Tramy Lao’s passion for cooking stemmed from her family’s traditions of cooking for large gatherings. But her true love of baking—and inspiration for her home bakery Newton Kneads Sourdough—began when she had children.
“Two of my three children have food allergies, and they’re allergic to dairy, eggs, and nuts, and those are ingredients that are in a lot of baked goods,” Lao said. “So I kind of had to start baking.”
Lao’s sourdough bread is made out of “limited ingredients” and is organic when possible. Her loaves are made from four simple ingredients—sourdough starter, water, olive oil, and flour.
Plus, a little something extra.
“It’s made with love,” Lao said.
Lao is a full-time real estate agent and mother who opened the Newtonville-based small business in March, the culmination of a decade spent baking as a hobby.
“It took a while for me to decide to open up a business, because, I mean, it’s a small business, it’s a residential kitchen,” said Lao. “I’ve been baking bread, probably for at least 10 years, sourdough, probably for the last five years.”
Lao said she took great care in building her business right, including obtaining permits and operating licenses.
“I’m a very careful person, so I wanted to make sure that I had all my ducks in a row,” said Lao. “I wanted to make sure that I got my permits and all that stuff first.”
The transition from hobbyist to business owner was an intimidating one for Lao.
“I was a little fearful that opening the business, I would lose my kind of love of baking, just because once you turn a hobby or a passion into a business, you can kind of get lost in it,” said Lao.
That loss of passion hasn’t happened at all, however. Lao said she still gets the same satisfaction taking out a fresh loaf of sourdough from the oven and seeing how it has risen beautifully, even when she’s being paid to do it.
“I love getting texts from people that said this is one of the best breads they’ve ever had,” Lao said. “It’s just, it’s a really nice feeling to know that you can feed people.”
Lao operates out of her home kitchen to provide Newton with fresh loaves of sourdough every Wednesday and Friday. She bakes the bread fresh to order for her customers to pick up or drops it off depending on how far the customers live from her.
“I have a 2-mile radius from my home,” Lao said. “If you’re within that radius, I charge $2—if you’re outside of that radius, it’s really dependent on how much further out it is and whether or not I can manage it.”
Her bread comes topped with intricate patterns, a visual representation of her passion for providing a well-rounded sourdough bread, she said.
“One of the reasons why I enjoy sourdough is the artistic side of it,” Lao said. “I like to score my bread too, like, pretty designs. I don’t charge extra for that. It’s just something I like to do.”
Lao said that despite having to balance her full-time job with scaling up her business, she really cares about providing every customer with a well-rounded experience.
“I [would] like people to know that every loaf, I take great care in making them,” Lao said. “It’s very intentional.”