The Australian Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book
The Australian Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book is a popular recipe book focused on children's-themed birthday cakes published as part of The Australian Women's Weekly magazine cookbook series by Australian Consolidated Press, written by Maryanne Blacker and Pamela Clark. First published in 1980 and re-released in 2011, its cultural impact has been variously described as an "Australian cult classic", a "cultural icon" and "national treasure". Between its launch in 1980 and its relaunch in 2011, notwithstanding it having been out of print for a significant portion of the intervening period, the recipe book sold more than a million copies – earning its description as a "publishing phenomenon".
Cover of the 1980 edition
Child blowing out candle on the brown bear cake (1986)
Recreation of the "train cake"
Recreation of the "rubber ducky" cake
A cookbook or cookery book is a kitchen reference containing recipes.
Eliza Smith's The Compleat Housewife, 1727
Apicius, De re coquinaria, an early collection of Roman recipes
18th Century Recipes for Biscuits from a private collection of recipes
from Modern Cookery for Private Families by Eliza Acton (London: Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1871, p. 48)
