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July 7, 2020
Habits

Shout your office break room Brazilian teacake from Cozy Cake

Brazilian teacake maker Cozy Cake has been running for two years as an online business and occasional pop-up, but has now found a permanent home on Grenfell Street.

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  • Words and pictures: Johnny von Einem

After two Adelaide Central Market pop-ups and two years of planning, Helena Guimaraes has launched Cozy Cake’s first bricks-and-mortar store.

Located at 50 Grenfell Street, Cozy Cake specialises in Brazilian teacake, light and not overly sweet, with 16 different varieties on offer.

Remarks

Cozy Cake
50 Grenfell Street, Adelaide 5000
Mon—Fri: 8am ’til 6pm
Saturday: 11am ’til 3pm

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The sweet smell of baking cakes draws CityMag in off the street.

“I was missing something to share with friends,” Helena explains to CityMag.

“This is what we have on a daily basis in Brazil. And here, I couldn’t find something not too sweet.

“I always find beautiful cakes, with toppings, fancy, but I think this type of teacake, you don’t need to have a special occasion to eat. You can eat on afternoon tea.

“[And] I think it’s such a good match with the nice coffee that we have here.”

The most popular iteration is the polenta cake, Helena says (“it’s a surprise: ‘Oh, it’s good!’” she laughs), but those with sweeter tastes will opt for the guava and dulce de leche varieties.

For CityMag’s take, the coconut cake is worth pairing with an espresso next door at Please Say Please.

Cozy Cake launched last Wednesday, 1 July. Helena signed the lease at the Grenfell Street store at the beginning of the year and had been gearing up for an early March launch, but her timeline was delayed due to COVID-19.

With foot traffic returning to the streets and workers slowly filling up office towers, Helena chose to reopen at the beginning of the new financial year.

She has been overwhelmed with the response and reports selling “100 cakes per day, easy,” since opening.

Helena came to Adelaide with her husband and daughters from Rio Claro, São Paulo. Until landing in Australia, she had been in business, following in the footsteps of her mother, who runs a jeans factory.

She landed in South Australia with the intention of this becoming her family’s new home, and with this new sense of possibility, she found she wanted to become part of the food industry.

“I don’t know, I think it was my age,” Helena says, when CityMag asks why she never started a food business in Brazil.

“Once we come here, we are starting everything – everything is new, so you can choose. Ok, now I’m mature enough to choose.”

There’s little Helena can point to when we ask for any similarities between São Paulo and her new home, except for one important culinary element.

“São Paulo, we are very multicultural too, so we have all the types of food, and here, the same, I think,” she says.

In coming to Adelaide, Helena found there was already a large Brazilian community, many of whom are active in the city’s hospitality scene, and she’s excited to now be a bricks-and-mortar trader amongst them.

“I think we Brazilian are building our space, our community’s growing, and we are bringing more stuff here,” she says.

Cozy Cakes is located at 50 Grenfell Street and opens 8am ‘til 6pm Monday to Friday and 11am ‘til 3pm Saturday.

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