Ranking All The Women’s Weekly Cakes Based On How Cursed They Are
If the echidna cake ever came to life, it's over for us all.
If you were a child who grew up at all over the last 30 years, chances are you begged your mum to whip you up a Women’s Weekly cake from the Australian Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book for your birthday at least once.
And, I mean, how could you not? Shitting on your friends with a four carriage-long Choo-Choo Train cake was all any of us wanted. Showing up that bitchy girl in your class with a Dolly Varden that had a real Barbie doll stuck inside truly was the dream. And if your birthday was in Summer, hoo boy, there was no going past the iconic Swimming Pool cake.
you’re not aussie if you haven’t had any of the cakes from the women’s weekly cookbook pic.twitter.com/DcBEJIjt2a
— 𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐱 🪐 JOSHIE DAYYYY (@formulagolden) August 19, 2020
But somewhere along the line kids stopped wanting cakes from the Australian Women’s Weekly’s Children’s Birthday Cake Cook Book and five-tiered, fondant-covered Fortnite cakes became the new craze. Luckily, Women’s Weekly have decided to re-release their iconic cake cookbook for its 40th anniversary to put Australia’s youth back onto the correct dessert path.
So in honour of Women’s Weekly cakes making their triumphant return, we’ve ranked the most iconic cakes by how undeniably cursed they are:
9. Dolly Varden
The Dolly Varden cake is almost impossible to fuck up. It’s literally just a Barbie shoved into a cake, that’s piped to look like a dress.
But when people start getting fancy with it — like sticking two pink marshmallows onto a plastic doll’s titties — is when it all starts to get a little bit weird.
8. Hickory Dickory Watch
While this cake is a simple as they come — apart from the whole hand-cut liquorice Roman numerals thing — it’s quite bold to chuck a whole prune onto a child’s cake. Yes, I get that it’s meant to look like a mouse but surely there are better flavour combos than liquorice and prunes, right?
Anyway, for this reason it must place on the cursed list.
7. The Choo-Choo Train
The joy of a Women’s Weekly cake is that they usually didn’t require too much effort.
Well, except for the Choo-Choo Train, easily one of the book’s hardest recipes by far. With all the required shaping of soft cake, building the trains carts, laying the tracks, hell. Even trying to make some believable smoke come out of the front carriage, the Choo-Choo was messed up.
While not necessarily cursed as a concept, when people started trying to adapt the already difficult cake is when it all went downhill. In the wise words of Thomas & Friends, Thomas had never seen such a mess.
6. Gary Ghost
As a general design, the ghost cake wasn’t too offensive. Until, of course, you remember that ghost’s eyes were literally egg shells.
Who approved this? Y’all couldn’t grab a couple of meringues? A marshmallow? A macaron or something? Anything but the damn egg shells with the “I’ve been up for 72 hours” red veins drawn on.
5. George Giraffe
Women’s Weekly had a very strange obsession with covering cakes in liquorice, easily one of the most hated foods in the world — and George Giraffe was no exception to that rule.
But beyond the liquorice, there was just something so inherently cursed about the giraffe cake. While the above example took creative freedom to add on a set of extra horrifying lolly teeth, the animal as a whole gave off some very bad vibes in the book.
Don’t forget the original giraffe used bright red maraschino cherries for eyes, and what’s more scary than that? Alright, I’m going to say it. George Giraffe looks like David Schwimmer, too. That’s what’s scarier than the cherry eyes.
4. Little Piggy Cake
Why does the Little Piggy cake always genuinely look like she’s been on a four-day rager?
The wild thing about the cake is, the original one by Women’s Weekly doesn’t even have top eyelashes. It just has cursed spiral set of bottom lashes that look like smudged mascara. Now pair that with her curly messy blonde hair, and you’ve got yourself a certified bad bitch.
3. Swimming Pool
Truly one of the most cursed of all the cakes in the book. Absolutely mental. Why is the jelly pool green and lime-flavoured? What kind of swimming spots was the baker frequenting to think that green is a normal colour for a large body of water.
Actually, why is there jelly on top of a chocolate cake anyway? What madman thought that lime and chocolate would go together well? Then to pair that all with a musk stick and liquorice ladder? Those are some real choices.
2. Rubber Ducky
I must give props to the woman who baked the rubber duck, lit it up super demonically and called it cursed, because let’s be real. It is.
As a general concept, giving the oversized duck some black-rimmed, bright orange button eyes, an inedible bow, popcorn hair and a bill made of two Smith’s crinkle cut chips makes me wonder if the food writer on the Women’s Weekly team was ok?
I don’t know about you but something about this duck really does not sit right with my soul.
1. Echidna Ice Cream Cake
Girl, what in the hell is this demonic design? If the echidna cake could anthropomorphise overnight, it would truly be over for us all.
Look at how evil that thing looks — and it’s not even this home-made version either. Even the photo in the cookbook is scary with its thick-ass chocolate spines, demonic eyes with no mouth, and honker of a nose.
In conclusion, I will not be sleeping peacefully tonight. Or ever again.
You can pick up a hard-cover, limited edition copy of The Australian Women’s Weekly’s Children’s Birthday Cake Cook Book here.