Australia is not short on beloved icons. But at the very top of the list of icons that mean the most to several generations of Australians is The Australian Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book.
Released in 1980, it became a staple in the homes of suburban Australia. Kids would paw through the book with regularity to determine which cake they would insist that their parents would bake for them each year for their birthday.
45 years later, the same book is still in print. The photography has been updated with fresher, hi-res images, and there have been a few recipes changed, but the book looks and feels almost the same as it did upon first release.
Are Media, publisher of The Australian Women’s Weekly, has partnered with the Royal Australian Mint and newsXpress to mark the 45th anniversary of the iconic book. The Mint has released a limited-edition coin collection that honours 12 of the book’s most beloved cakes, including the jelly-filled swimming pool, the unforgettable choo-choo train, and the iconic rubber ducky duck cake.
Mediaweek spoke with The Australian Women’s Weekly editor Sophie Tedmanson. Like so many Australians, one of her first introductions to the magazine was through the book.
“1976 was when I was born. And the reason I bring that up is because my brother was nine years younger and my step-mom used to make the cakes for my brother. So, I have vivid memories as a teenager of being very jealous of my brother getting the swimming pool cake and having lots of fun cakes, whereas by then, I thought I was too cool to ask for a fun cake as a teenager.
“I remember going through it with my little brother and sister and seeing the fruits of my step-mom’s baking. Being editor now, I love seeing the evolution of this book over 45 years and the joy that it brings different families and different generations. And when I think of my own family experience, my sister Brianna, who’s younger again than my brother, she’s actually grown into a very accomplished baker herself.
“And she makes really amazing cakes now for my brother’s two daughters. So my nieces now get these elaborate cakes and I just feel like it’s this amazing trade through that started with the Women’s Weekly Birthday Cake Cookbook, which our family loves to celebrate. So yeah, I have, like many Australians, I have a really great personal connection to it.”
Because all good conversations in Australia come back to Bluey, the book’s appearance in that show has become part of the continued fascination in the book.
“I have a lot to thank Bluey for bringing the Duck Cake back to a whole new generation.
“We love seeing the new life it has on social media through platforms like TikTok, where there’s a whole lot of influencers who embrace it. And, you know, the nostalgia factor is really big on social media. So people just have been loving these cakes and every now and then they go viral on social and we just love seeing the joy that it brings a whole new generation,” Tedmanson said.
As Tedmanson and the team explored the history of the book, they delved into the figures and discovered that the book has sold over a million copies worldwide. It has been reprinted in 36 countries all around the world.
For the latest issue of the magazine, the Birthday Cake Book’s original bakers were brought back to the test kitchen for a reunion.
Tedmanson recounted that “We photographed and filmed it – it was just so great to have them back in the kitchen and talking about their memories of creating these cakes and… some of them were created by accident. They had stories about the cheeks, beaks of the duck, how they worked out how to do that, and it was just so beautiful and so wonderful to see these women talk about things that have become, you know, part of our collective memory.”
The editor of Mediaweek notes that he has his own 45th birthday next week and will try to convince his mum to give the rocket cake another go.