‘The best book ever written in this country’

WHO didn’t want the swimming pool cake growing up? Or the train cake? An 80s cult classic is making a comeback and the pictures are making us smile.

AS FAR back as I can remember, this book has been part of my life. There simply isn’t a time in conscious memory without it.

As an adult, I longed to share the joy of it with my future children but couldn’t find it anywhere. In 2008 I resorted to eBay and paid 12 times the original cover price. And yes, it was worth every cent.

It has been called “the best book ever written in this country.” Others have labeled it a “cult classic.” But this is not a seminal Australian novel.

The Australian Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book (AWWCBCB) first came out in 1980 and sold more than million copies worldwide before its re-release four years ago.

Today the retro tome inspires performers, artists, bloggers, Facebook fan groups and new generation of home bakers.

Jack in the box! photo: Felicity Glennie-Holmes

Classic piano cake. photo: Felicity Glennie-Holmes

Comedian Josh Earl has a popular show about the book aptly titled Josh Earl vs. Australian Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book.

“The show is a complete a love letter to the book,” he says.

During Josh’s popular show he sings songs and projects photos of every single cake in the AWWCBCB onto a big screen for the audience to see.

“I did the show in Mount Isa. It’s a very big tough mining town. I had grown men punching the air about cakes they had as children,” he laughs. Josh says no other book would get a reaction on stage like this.

The vintage edition contains 107 delightful and sometimes politically incorrect kids’ birthday cake recipes. Think baked butter cake packet mix cut into unlikely shapes, topped with lashings of coloured Vienna cream icing and finished off with lollies and dyed desiccated coconut. Cue the Rubber Ducky cake with its controversial savoury potato-chip bill, the green jelly Swimming Pool, Dolly Varden’s frilly iced skirt and the daunting Choo-Choo Train cake with carriages full of multi-coloured popcorn.

Do chips really belong on a cake?

An Australian classic: The Koala cake. Photo: Felicity Glennie-Holmes

Felicity Glennie-Holmes is on a mission to make every cake in the book. The communication professional and self-proclaimed nostalgic baker has made 33 with a mere 74 to go. However, her reason for making the cakes is not a joyous one.

“Unfortunately, I’m one of the 25 percent of Australian women who will never have children.

“I was so sad when I realised this meant I would never make those cakes for my kids the way my father made them for me,” she says.

Felicity decided that even without a family she could still make the cakes, and that in fact, she could make them all. She describes this as an “up-yours” to her childlessness and says: “It’s been a very cathartic process.”

Cover of book 'The Australian Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book'.

Before being reprinted, the vintage edition was so hard to come by for so long, it took on an almost mythical status. But Josh also believes the book’s appeal represents nostalgia for a time when Australian life was simpler.

“It’s not fancy,” he says, “the original cake book has got photos where the lollies are actually falling off the eyes and there’s something about the fact that it’s not perfect that people really relate to. I think you look at the book and it’s achievable.”

Loveable because it’s not perfect - the tip truck cake. Photo: Felicity Glennie-Holmes

Felicity expands on this, explaining that the book manages to combine “fantasy, magic and ritual.”

“Everyone has a story about the one they loved most, or the one they wanted and never got.

“And everyone who was a child when the book came out is now…introducing the book to their families and passing the tradition on. “Making the cakes isn’t just baking, it’s making memories too,” she says.

Claire Davie, the creator of the AWWCBCB Facebook fan group, with her favourite childhood cake.

As a child, Josh’s favourite cake was the tip truck because it had “the most lollies involved.” Felicity always wanted the pool cake and never got it. What’s your favourite cake in the book? Which ones did you have or miss out on as a child? Tell us your memories!

Josh Earl has baked the typewriter cake over 50 times! Photo: Felicity Glennie-Holmes

Follow Ginger Gorman on Twitter @freshchilli