CAKE ZINE explores the rich history of cake through an esoteric and hedonistic lens.
A sensation that practically exploded out of the DIY and extravagant baking scene that took on a life on Instagram during and after the pandemic, CAKE ZINE is the creation of writer/editor Aliza Abarbanel and writer/baker Tanya Bush who take us on a tour of history, pop culture, literature and art through dessert. It's a slim volume, but extraordinarily rich, and we love it.
CAKE ZINE No 7, Forbidden Fruit, explores how fruit fuels temptation and transgression. It’s one hundred and six pages of essays, recipes, art and more including:
• Unholy marriages of vice and sweetness, like a scene report on the strawberry “jaba juice” fueling Nairobi nightlife by Awuor Onguru and Ankit Sethi’s frantic search for blackmarket mango-flavored Juul pods
• An exploration of Corsican strawberries, class, and the fruits of labor by K Chiucarello
• A surreal short story on pomegranates by Xita Rubert winner of the 2024 Premio Herralde de Novela
• An oral history of Fire Island’s queer Eden, Cherry Grove, by Emma Banks
• Questioning the all-American status of apple pie and Florida fruit juice, by Rafaella Basseli and Grayston Samuels
• A profile of Bilal, an ever-optimistic clerk in one of Barcelona’s many fruterias powered by illicit labor, by Sithara Ranasinghe
• A reckoning with orange soda by New York Magazine's Chris Crowley
• Giri Nathan unpacking the immigrant fruit-plate-as-love-language trope
• Recipes to fuel our deepest produce cravings: durian snow skin mooncakes by Mei Liao, pomegranate icebox cake by Mina Stone, gooey tonka bean butter cakes by Rose Wilde, guava nicuatole by Yara Herrera and strawberry atole cake by Teresa Finney.
• Plus: The confessions of a child mango thief, a cannabis baker’s struggle to beat her fruit allergies in pursuit of culinary greatness, fruitarianism and more
