Customer Reviews

Childrens Birthday Cake Book (Australian Womens Weekly)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the cakebook every Australian family had on the shelf in the 1980s. When you asked a kid what cake they were having for their birthday, they would just name a cake from this book. It comes from an era that predated the fondant/rolled icing perfection that seems so standard now. These cakes are creative artworks: rustic and querky. Decorations are made mostly with lollies and biscuits, so each slice is a taste adventure. This book is gold, and I am thrilled to have my new copy.

Oh my God, I remember this book from when I was little. My sister and I, both born in January, used to borrow it from my Aunty and spend hours poring over it discussing what cakes we could have. We were only allowed these cakes on "special" birthdays which, hmmmm, were only 2, 3, 4, 5 and 10. Not sure what that big gap in the middle was about, clearly we were deprived children. Anyway, this was THE book. And it still is in so many ways. My two year old took off with it as soon as it arrived and spent what seemed like hours (but was probably only a blissful 20 minutes) flicking through it. He quickly grasped that he could choose something for his third birthday and eventually decided on the rocket cake (balanced precariously on cardboard fins, great). It was delightful to see the magic transferring down a generation, which is why I give it such a high rating. It is now a bit dated though... I had forgotten that it's divided into "For Boys" and "For Girls" sections. Rather hilariously, the "For Girls" section contains a sewing machine cake, a sewing basket cake, a dressing table cake and, just when you think it couldn't get any worse, a stove cake(!). That aside, it's much more creative and exciting than the more modern edition and it also contains a lot of ideas to kick start your own creativity.

I had this book as a child too - my mother made the piano cake, the baby doll cake and many more which I remember vividly. Now I have two little boys and they love looking through the book to choose their own birthday cakes. So far we have made number cakes, dump trucks, barns and ducks together - not always quite from the book, but using it as inspiration. The kids love it and it's great fun. Highly recommended!

This was an absolute favourite with the kids in my family when we were growing up. Getting to choose what cake you were going to have was a favourite family tradition. You should REALLY get this book for your kids.

This book is one that every parent must have on the shelf. I had one all through my childhood, and now we were able to get the classic edition for our children. Timeless

These cakes can be labor intensive (my daughter spent at least 6 hours assembling the train) but they are adorable and taste good too. Our 3 year old grandson was delighted with his train cake and the 5 year old grandson was delighted with the tiger cake. You need to have the time, energy and desire to assemble one of these but they are worth the effort. All the kids (and parents) found the cakes to be delightful and almost hated to cut into them.

I gave it 4 stars because of the time required to make some of the cakes. The directions are clear and some cakes are much easier than others. You also need lots of "trimmings" to make the cakes: licorice strings, chocolate chips, sprinkles, marshmallows, etc. Most of the stuff is easy to find but you do need to have it to make the cakes look as good as they do in the book.

I had this book when I was a kid and everytime my birthday would roll around I would flip through this and admire all the doll cakes, sprinkled cakes, chocolate cakes and so forth. One year the piano cake was recreated for my birthday and we added some musical accessories to it. Some of the other highlights I enjoyed in here were the tea party cake, the candy shop cake, the doll cakes, the number cakes, the musical instrument ones, fairy tale ones and this really pretty cake with vanilla frosting with sprinkly hearts on the sides. People used to really treat cake baking as an art form as shown in this book, but now people just want to get the same old cake from a grocery store or a plain cake with a picture of the latest cartoon fad or something, where's the art in that? Definitely buy this book and make creative cakes together with your kids or anyone at all, it's a great pasttime