Pamela Clark pictured with her favourite cake from The Australian Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book. Picture: Lulu Freedman

The concept began, Pamela recalls, with “a little boy who desperately wanted a dinosaur cake.”

This young lad, Douglas, was a neighbour and being the foodie she is, Pamela whipped up a Tyrannosaurus rex cake.

Douglas The Dinosaur might have started The Australian Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book, but he never actually appeared in it. Picture: Pamela ClarkSource:Supplied

These days Pamela is Editorial and Food Director of The Australian Women’s Weekly (AWW) Cookbooks. But back in the late 1970s, she was the head home economist in the AWW test kitchen.

At that time, making an animal cake made for a child’s birthday was a novelty.

“I came into the office and told everyone, because we’re always talking about food and cakes and things,” Pamela says.

Her colleagues loved the idea and Pamela’s “Douglas the Dinosaur” cake featured in the Women’s Weekly magazine a few years later.

“From 1978, after I first made Douglas the Dinosaur, we started talking about doing a children’s birthday cake book. And that’s how this book came about,” she says.

Some call this ‘the greatest book ever written in this country’.Source:Supplied

The book Pamela is referring to is The Australian Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book, known in fan circles simply by the acronym “AWWCBCB.”

This modest magazine-style retro cookbook was first printed in 1980 and features instructions for making 107 children’s cakes, largely composed of packet butter cake mix, Vienna cream icing and lollies.

A warning: Don’t be fooled by AWWCBCB’s low-key appearance. The book has extensive — and perhaps somewhat surprising — cultural influence.

In a viral article I wrote for news.com.au last year, this tome was variously described as “the best book ever written in this country” and “a cult classic.”

Before its reprint in 2011, AWWCBCB sold more than a million copies worldwide. It has its own Facebook fan group and Wikipedia entry. Comedian Josh Earl wrote an entire show about it and Melbourne-based miniaturist Ellie McAlpine has fabulously made some of the AWWCBCB cakes in miniature from polymer clay.

Some of Ellie McAlpine’s tiny creations. Picture: Ellie McAlpineSource:Supplied

Pamela is as shocked as anyone that the book she conceived of all those years ago and created 60 recipes for, has had such an ongoing impact on three generations of bakers. This is especially true because, according to Pamela, AWWCBCB was not an instant hit in Australia. Initially it sold far better in the United Kingdom than Down Under.

These days, Pamela puts the book’s popularity partly down to “the nostalgic element.”

“Anyone that you talk to remembers a cake from their childhood,” she says, while also reflecting that: “When you look back at some of those cakes, they’re seriously dated.”

Another reason the book “has become iconic,” Pamela says, is because “there is no such thing as a really smart, perfect looking cake in there.”

The most controversial cake in the book, the duck cake. Picture: Felicity Glennie-HolmesSource:Supplied

Jack in the box. Picture: Felicity Glennie-HolmesSource:Supplied

Pamela recalls staff at the Australian Women’s Weekly test kitchen coming up with the AWWCBCB cakes by experimenting.

“There was no plan. They just evolved. And we’d never done a book like this before.

“The food editor [back] then, Ellen Sinclair, used to say: ‘Oh I like that one, little darling.’ And they’d bring in a photographer. So there was no fancy lighting, it was literally on the kitchen bench; that’s why they look how they look,” she recalls with a laugh.

Personally Pamela’s favourite cake is Dolly Varden, with her long butter cake and marshmallow skirt. (You can see Pamela and I making this cake in the below video.)

The Dolly Varden cake, a perennial favourite. Picture: Lulu FreedmanSource:news.com.au

“Everybody loves it. I know how easy it is, and it’s so, so simple and effective. The little girls love it,” Pamela says.

However, Pamela does confess with some hilarity that on occasion she’s run into trouble when the doll’s legs happened to be too long to fit inside the cake skirt.

“You had to cut them [the plastic legs] off just below the waist. And I’ve seen little girls cry when the dolly’s been fished out of the cake and she’s legless.” she laughs.

Pamela disputes the Choo-Choo Train cake’s status as “the Mount Everest of cakes.”

“My heart goes out to people when they’re going to take on the dreaded tip-truck cake,” Pamela says and goes on to explain how difficult it is to engineer the vehicle’s tilted butter cake rear tray packed full of lollies.

The dreaded tip-truck cake. Try it if you dare. Picture: Felicity Glennie-HolmesSource:Supplied

Lately, the AWWCBCB has been back in the national headlines and frankly, I’m to blame. As ambassador for Canberra-based peri-natal depression and anxiety support service PANDSI, I suggested to the organisation’s president, Christine Spicer, that we make all 107 cakes from AWWCBCB on the same day. And that’s how the PANDSI Cake Off, which is happening in Canberra tomorrow, was born.

“We just thought we’d go for it,” Christine says, adding that support for the event has been overwhelming.

“We asked Canberra to bake us every one of the 107 cakes, and in 40 minutes of opening the competition, every single cake was gone,” Christine says.

There no doubt would have been a lot of competition to make this cake. The swimming pool is everyone’s favourite.Source:Supplied

“People have so much love for the cakes. And we want to embrace that and turn that love into support and help for members of our community that are having a pretty tough time,” she says.

Pamela is making the trip to the nation’s capital and will be at the PANDSI Cake Off. (And yes, we’re more than a bit excited about that!)

“I’m just totally blown away by the whole concept. I think it is fabulous and I regret not thinking of it myself,” Pamela says.

The PANDSI Cake Off is on tomorrow (Saturday, May 7) between 2 and 4pm at the Hyatt Hotel in Yarralumla, Canberra. If you can’t make it but would like to donate, find out more here.

Disclaimer: Ginger is ambassador for Canberra’s peri-natal depression and anxiety support service, PANDSI. However apart from being an AWWCBCB fan-girl, she has no affiliation with the Australian Women’s Weekly.