Edible Food Find: Brynne’s Bread
Photos by Michael Piazza
As Brynne Stark stood in her newly expanded and renovated home bakery, she laughed as she reminisced on how the space was once so tiny.
Brynne’s Bread in Oakham offers a variety of artisan baked goods all handcrafted by Stark herself. While the passion she developed for baking early on hasn’t wavered, her journey as a business owner has been anything but ordinary.
“I feel like I’ve had a lot of starts and stops,” she says. When Stark first started baking it was to provide co-workers and friends with freshly baked bread made from simple, high-quality, local ingredients. It was when her husband’s co-worker inquired about buying bread that the idea of Brynne’s Bread was born—and the journey of starts and stops began.
Stark joined her first farmers market as Brynne’s Bread in 2010—but her workload as a full-time special education teacher prevented her from finishing the season. In early 2011, she left teaching and paused baking altogether when she had her first child. Raising her family became her utmost priority—but baking continued to call to her.
“It’s what I feel like I’m meant to do,” says Stark. “I think it’s really kind of neat to find that in life. That doesn’t always happen.”
Shortly thereafter, in the fall of 2011, Stark began baking again—even launching a successful CSA model in 2012. She appeared at farmers markets, festivals and pop-ups at local businesses.
Brynne’s Bread would enjoy nearly six years of relatively uninterrupted success before she experienced her next—and most shocking—hurdle: She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2018. Her growing business had to pause once again.
“That was really, really hard and really challenging,” Stark says. “I had to take a step back from baking and the things that I love to do.”
While Stark underwent extensive medical treatment, she and her husband, Chris, whom she calls her “market manager,” bought a charming mini-truck from Japan that allowed for easier transportation and setups for markets. Chris even built a custom caravan on the truck’s bed that perfectly suits their needs.
Shortly after Stark returned to baking in the summer of 2019, COVID-19 brought the world to a standstill. But instead of facing another derailment, the Starks’ business flourished when they opened the minitruck for outdoor shopping that spring through fall.
Stark recalls customers being excited to pick up her baked goods in the Brynne’s Bread mini-truck parked right in her front yard, “We had people lining up down the road waiting for the truck to open,” she says. Customers couldn’t have been more thrilled to get her products, which they trusted.
If Stark isn’t using ingredients sourced from her backyard garden, such as the rhubarb she uses to make a blackberry rhubarb snacking cake, she sources from neighboring farms (like eggs from Country Hen in Hubbardston, honey from Raw Oakham and apples from Ragged Hill Orchard in West Brookfield).
These local ingredients are used across a rotating menu of popular offerings—from sandwich breads like country white and Italian, to granola, to her esteemed cinnamon rolls and her personal favorites: lemon cookies, caramel chocolate chip cookies and flourless chocolate cakes. Stark tries to offer something for everyone, including gluten-free options.
Today, Stark is on a newer pursuit into French pastries, like croissants and pain au chocolat. She is determined to grow her business as she sees fit, in a way that allows for a work-life balance—something she cherishes.
Stark is now four years cancer free and excited to have a much bigger home bakery and a new stone oven so she can dabble into the sourdough world.
“Having this new space, I feel like I can finally move forward.”
This story appeared in the Summer 2023 issue.
