July is my birthday month (🦀) and to, I suppose, celebrate, I built the July issue all around a little cake-making outfit out of California, Cake Queen LA.
You may wonder: Who is the Cake Queen? She’s Rachel Barrett, a friend, a photographer, and a maker of insanely beautiful, at times completely over the top—you guessed it—big-time celebration cakes.
Rachel started Cake Queen after I had already left LA, which means I have (hungrily) watched her build this thing—from scratch, at home—from afar. And it’s been really fun to watch. Rachel makes a lot of different cakes, but her signature, I would venture, is this really ornate, previously outmoded, but now back in a big way, vintage-style layer cake.
In the zine, I talk to Rachel about all things cake, elaborate and beautiful and, they say, delicious. How she went from photography to cakes (with a detour in nutrition in between).
Here, digitally, I asked Rachel to round up all her cake-making essentials: The tools, the recipes, the inspiration that keeps her churning out these little (actually sometimes quite huge) nuggets.
Zoe Bakes Cakes: “The cookbook that started it all and I use as my main resource.”
Watkins: “Natural food coloring! The best.”
If You Care: Parchment Sheets (Ed’s note: Duh, not a roll, smart!)
King Arthur Cake Strips: “For flat cake layers!” (Ed’s note: This is a thing?!!)
Offset spatulas: “I have multiple sizes but this is a must for any at home baker.”
Turntable: Take a look at CQLA’s Instagram and you’ll really see how big of a roll the turntable takes in cake decorating… (!)
Sally’s Baking Addiction: “Has been tremendously helpful.”
Bourbon Vanilla Extract: Favorite is just TJs!
In addition to the above clickables and resources, Rachel also shared some of the accounts she follows, draws inspiration from, even learns from…
Picnic Baked Goods | Gabby Bakes | Bodega Cakes | Lauren Schofield | Velvet Valley Cakes | Sugar And Sparrow (Rachel: “This helped me a LOT in the beginning”)
I’m not much of a cake baker, personally, but MAN if all this doesn’t make me (and maybe you) want to run out and get the stand mixer whirring…
🍰
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Happy birthday! such a fun issue
Happy Birthday (belated) to you indeed!