Friendship is key to success at new Somerville bakery
At Maprang Bakery and Cafe, Thai desserts take center stage.
Updated: June 7, 2024, 8:30 PM ET
Others. Taste, fun and friendship are key factors at MAPRANG Bakery in Union Square, Somerville. MAPRANG is a Thai fruit made by stacking Junsang. She and many of her friends are amateur bakers and spent many evenings trying recipes on each other for fun. Eventually, they decided to take a risk and share their culinary creativity with the public. They love to bake bread. That’s why we decided to open this bakery for fun. So in the evenings we could just come and spend time with them, have a drink and then have dinner and laugh. It’s okay. John Tsang Tsai is a co-owner of the company, but he doesn’t spend much time in the kitchen. I don’t know how to bake bread. I don’t know how to cook. If you ask anyone I know, they don’t even know how to make Mary taste good. John Tsang Tsai moved to Massachusetts from Thailand to study computer engineering a few years ago and is now an assistant professor at Wentworth Institute of Technology. One of my role model professors when I was a child is a professor from Thailand. I’m really bad at Thai. One time, she taught me for free in her free time, and I learned everything in like 2 hours. I was impressed. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to be a teacher. I feel good when I teach. If you look closely, you can see her expertise. There’s a pastry stand propped up, and on top are coding, programming, and web development books, croissants, cookies, and cinnamon rolls. It’s not just sweet. It’s like a freezer case filled with perfectly sweet things. A striking, slightly sweet dessert with traditional Thai ingredients. This is a Southeast Asian leaf. Some say it smells like vanilla. The coconut pandan cake is a layer of sponge cake with a coconut tapioca-like pudding topped with whipped cream. It incorporates Thai icing, orange, and the famous drink in cake form. There’s also a red bean cake with Thai tea and matcha, and a bright and beautiful mango yuzu mousse. Yuzu is a fruit. Some people call it a citrus, right? It tends to be more sour and sweet, and it’s very delicious when combined with other fruits. It’s an indulgent dessert that doesn’t overwhelm the palate. I’m proud that at least you can try our Thai dessert. And it’s an opportunity to share a taste of home while nurturing a new community. What’s my favorite part? Laughing. That’s all we care about, right? If we’re not having fun, why do you do it? If you want to come, feel free to join us. It’s a good philosophy. In addition to the fruit itself, you can eat the part where the branch remains and the seeds. The taste is usually said to be quite bitter, but the more fruit you have, the more you can eat. It goes by various names in Southeast Asia and in the United States it is called mango, plum, and plum mango. This concludes the chronicle for tonight. Thank you for joining us. Have a great night and a great weekend. I look forward to seeing you again on Monday night. Good night, everyone.
Friendship is key to success at new Somerville bakery
At Maprang Bakery and Cafe, Thai desserts take center stage.
Updated: June 7, 2024, 8:30 PM ET
Flavor, fun, and friendship are key elements at Maprang Bakery & Cafe in Somerville’s Union Square. Pirin Junsangsri and her friends, many of whom are amateur bakers, spent many nights testing out recipes just for fun. Eventually, the group decided to take a risk and share their culinary creativity with the public. They serve traditional pastries like croissants, cookies, and cinnamon rolls, as well as striking, subtly sweet desserts made with traditional Thai ingredients. Junsangsri and her friends, many of whom are from Thailand and Massachusetts.
Flavor, fun and friendship are the key ingredients at Maprang Bakery & Cafe in Somerville’s Union Square. Pilin Junsangsri and her friends, many of whom are amateur bakers, spent many evenings testing recipes on each other just for fun. Eventually, the group decided to take a risk and share their culinary creativity with the public.
Serving traditional pastries like croissants, cookies and cinnamon rolls, as well as striking, subtly sweet desserts made with traditional Thai ingredients, Junsangsri and her friends travel in droves from Thailand to Massachusetts.
