Matelna Bakes, a Montgomery County-based bakery owned by sisters Melissa and Marris Linsao, is continuing to grow six years after the business first began out of a home kitchen in Silver Spring.
The sisters launched Matelna Bakes in 2020 as a cottage kitchen in the Wheaton/Aspen Hill area. Both are graduates of Wheaton High School and continue to live in Montgomery County. The business later moved production to its first commercial kitchen in Frederick, where it operated for about a year and a half, before returning to Montgomery County. Since July 2025, Matelna Bakes has operated out of a commercial kitchen in Gaithersburg.
Throughout its growth, the bakery has maintained a strong local presence through farmers markets, pop-ups and catering, including appearances in Bethesda, Kentlands and Olney. “Montgomery County has remained very important to our business as we have grown,” the sisters told The MoCoShow. “It is where we built our foundation, developed strong relationships with our customers and community and established our reputation. Even though we have expanded, we have remained committed to MoCo and value the opportunity to continue growing alongside the community that has supported us from the beginning.”
Filipino-inspired pastries have become an important part of Matelna Bakes, with items such as ube cinnamon rolls and cakes, ube brownies, ube mochi and ube crinkle cookies featured on its menu.
The sisters said incorporating those flavors gives them an opportunity to share their Filipino culture and traditions through food.“Since food is such a meaningful part of Filipino culture, we wanted to showcase familiar flavors and ingredients in creative ways while bringing a sense of nostalgia to Filipinos and introducing others to the flavors of the Philippines,” they said.
Matelna Bakes also carries a significant family connection. The business was originally started while Marris was caring for the sisters’ father. After his death, she stepped away from baking before eventually returning to the business, which the sisters have continued to grow in his honor.
Now, Matelna Bakes is taking another step in that growth through a new ongoing partnership with Sulod Cocktail Bar in Washington, DC, where several of the bakery’s desserts will be regularly available.
The partnership came together through the sisters’ mutual friend Leah, who attended one of Matelna Bakes’ pop-ups with Miacane and suggested that their products could be a good fit for the new cocktail bar. Leah later brought samples to Sulod owners Aliyah and Shelly, which led to a meeting between the businesses the following week.
The partnership will feature three Matelna Bakes desserts to start, a pandan cinnamon roll topped with pandan buttercream and toasted coconut, an ube brownie with white chocolate chips served with vanilla ice cream, and peach cobbler bread pudding served with Creole rum sauce and vanilla ice cream.
The menu also reflects the backgrounds of both businesses. Sulod is Filipina-Creole owned, and the sisters said its owners were interested in featuring Matelna’s ube brownies, one of the bakery’s most popular items.
Because cinnamon rolls are Matelna Bakes’ specialty, the bakery also developed a pandan cinnamon roll highlighting the Southeast Asian ingredient’s coconut and vanilla notes. The peach cobbler bread pudding was developed collaboratively by the two teams and is made with Matelna’s cinnamon rolls, housemade peach compote and a Creole rum sauce.
The desserts are expected to remain available at Sulod on a regular basis, rather than as a limited-time pop-up, though seasonal changes to the offerings could be made in the future. For the Linsao sisters, the partnership has an additional connection to their father. Leah, the friend who introduced Matelna Bakes to Sulod, had been friends with their father for several years while he worked at Kaiser.
“We couldn’t help but think that this partnership has come to fruition because our father was looking down from above and got all these steps in motion,” the sisters said. “This partnership is an absolutely amazing feeling and our whole family is proud to be part of this.”
Matelna Bakes is now working toward another expansion with plans to get a mobile food trailer up and running, which would allow the sisters to bring the business to more locations throughout the DMV. In the meantime, they plan to continue participating in farmers markets and pop-ups, offering catering and exploring partnerships with other small businesses.
