Greek pastries and custom cakes at new Raymond bakery
Reni Mylonas found success in 2020 as a homestead baker, dabbling in custom-order cakes and tapping into her Greek roots with pastries and cookies. Two years later, the Danville native has expanded into a new storefront in nearby Raymond, offering Greek favorites using recipes passed down in her family, along with other grab-and-go treats.
Agape Cakes & Confections, named after the Greek word meaning “love,” celebrated its grand opening April 9 with a menu of cupcakes, bars, macarons, cake popsicles and more. The new shop is in the Cozy Corner plaza on Route 27, giving Mylonas a permanent spot to sell out of for the first time. She’ll also be making authentic Greek pastries part of her regular lineup of sweets.
“My grandparents were born in Greece … and my dad was as well, so I grew up in a very Greek household,” she said. “I’ve grown up eating all these pastries, so it’s fun to share with everyone and to introduce them to those who haven’t had a chance to try some of them.”
A self-taught cake decorator, Mylonas started baking around the age of 9. She gained experience working in a few local shops along the way, most recently at Love + Flour Bakery in Salem.
When she started Agape not long after the pandemic shutdown, it was friends and family that mostly made up her customer base. Word of her talents quickly spread through social media.
Nearly every day out of the shop’s case, available treats include six-inch and eight-inch cakes; rotating flavors of cupcakes, macarons, bars, and Mylonas’s own homemade Greek baklava.
“I actually individually roll all of the pieces, so they are just like little logs, essentially, as opposed to one full tray that you cut into triangles,” she said. “It’s a bit harder to make, but I find that it’s a better product. … You also don’t want too much syrup, but you want enough where it’s coated on the inside and outside, where it’s almost moist and chewy but in a good way.”
With the help of her grandmother, Mylonas offers galaktoboureko, a custard-filled dessert wrapped in phyllo dough, as well as various types of Greek cookies, like kourabiedes (rose shortbread cookies coated in powdered sugar), koulourakia (butter cookies with a hint of vanilla) and melomakarona (spiced cookies soaked in syrup and topped with walnuts and sugar).
A wholesale area of the shop features ground and bean coffee from Coco’s Coffee, a small-batch single-origin roaster out of East Kingston. Other items for sale include Chocofreta, a brand of imported Greek chocolate bars, as well as honey sesame sticks and Greek evil eye pendants.
“It’s like a protection eye that you can hang up. We have them in our house, or you can put them on a keychain,” Mylonas said of the pendants. “It’s part of our culture [and] it’s meant to deflect negative energy. … I also have some mugs that I sell as a pack with Greek tea cookies.”
Mylonas plans to continue accepting custom cake and cupcake orders while also operating the storefront. Her next business venture for Agape will be in the form of a mobile cupcake trailer, which she hopes to have on the road to rent for private parties, weddings and public events like fairs by this summer.
Agape Cakes & Confections
Where: 59 Route 27, Unit 5, Raymond
Hours: Wednesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
More info: Visit agapecandc.com, email [email protected], or follow them on Facebook @agapecakesandconfections and Instagram @agape_cakesandconfections
Featured photo: Photo courtesy of Agape Cakes & Confections.
