BAKESTER’S DOZEN 13 REASONS TO HOP IN

By Rajesh Ghadge

Images by Tanmayee Masurkar

Helga Motha, the owner of Bakester’s Dozen hails from a family who loves good food Her Grandmother was running a school of culinary art called Master Craft where she used to teach baking.

Although Helga did not undertake any formal training in food, you could say that she was genetically made to be in this field and is selftaught

Helga was working in the hospitality industry in the food & beverages department before starting her own entrepreneurial journey with Bakester’s Dozen. When I asked Helga about the meaning of “Bakester’s Dozen” and the number 13 written on it she said she follows the baker’s dozen “A female baker is known as Bakester and we follow the concept of Baker’s Dozen which is based on the folktale wherein our dozen is 13 which means anyone who buys 12 pcs (1 dozen) from here, we provide 13.” Helga is a home baker and we have already covered her story in the Home Chef section in one of our earlier issues. Helga says, “I have been into baking for more than a decade and I still have a fully-fledged bakery running at home but when the kids grew up, I decided to step out and start something of my own and from that, the concept of Bakester’s Dozen came into existence.”

It was during the lockdown Helga started her new venture at Benaulim close to the beach. “For me, it was the right time and despite the lockdown, many tourists who were left stranded in Goa were visiting the cafe on a regular basis and business was good. I also got enough time to experiment a lot on bread and got a chance to study the market by trying different things.”

Speaking about her clientele she said that they have lots of local customers “I am from Margao and people know me. I have a good client base here for my cakes and bakes and most of them visit our place here,” she said.

Helga’s reason behind setting up the cafe away from the main city is property. “I have lived in an old Portuguese house and always liked that kind of property When I came across this place, I instantly grabbed the opportunity. This is the space and environment that I always wanted. Yes, I had to do a lot of work to put the place together but that was done.”

“Margao is always a better option This place is more of a relaxed type, where people come and spend some time, work from here, and we have free Wifi. During Covid, this cafe had really picked up, ” she said.

Speaking about her signature dishes she said, “We sell a lot of Baos and in fact, we are known for them so it is one of our signature dishes. We also cook a lot of pork and beef dishes too. Our roast pork and roast beef are best-sellers. There are a lot of locals who do not cook meat at home so come to our cafe to savour the same ”

“I prefer selling desserts instead of pastries We provide a platter of assorted desserts. You can play around with desserts but not so much with pastries.”

Another thing that Helga mentioned here is sourcing coffee beans “We are well known for our excellent coffee and we source our coffee beans directly from Coorg. We grind them ourselves in our Italian coffee machine so you get a fresh cup of coffee here. Our coffee brings people here from far and wide- some people even come just for an espresso shot!” she said