Wicked Cake Is Here!

Pre-order our second issue now.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while we pondered, weak and weary, over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—just kidding. No disrespect to Edgar Allan Poe, but plagiarizing the dead is the paltriest sin you’re about to encounter.

In case you haven’t dined with us before, some background on the menu: Cake Zine launched earlier this year with Sexy Cake, a spring issue exploring the relationship between desires of the flesh and desires for dessert. Now we’re crossing over to the dark side with Wicked Cake, an autumn issue where horrors lurk beneath the buttercream.

Wicked Cake passes the mic to the devil on your shoulder and the unspoken anxieties in the back of your brain. Why is “sinful” such a successful marketing term for sweets? When did everything on the internet become cake? What’s it like to bake with blood? Let the record show: Cake Zine does not endorse cannibalism. But literature on the matter is another story.

Our diabolical dessert course spans from sixteenth-century witch trials to A.I.-assisted bakeries. Consider the ghosts of Indigenous land dispossession through a sculptural devil’s food cake. Learn from the Victorian murderesses who “mixed up” strychnine and sugar that revenge is a dish best served baked. Peek inside Sylvia Plath’s oven. Make a maximalist “death by chocolate” cake that might very well kill you, or at least your will to wash another dish. 

Wicked Cake marks an important milestone for a small, independent publication like Cake Zine: our first issue open for pitches. The flood of emails was inspiring; the debate over what to print with our limited resources was exhausting. We decided to focus on work reflecting the expansiveness of “wickedness,” although not in the sense of Boston or Broadway. Readers of our first issue might spot familiar territory—a glossy centerfold featuring high-concept cakes, hotly expressed opinions on admittedly niche dessert debates—but also new-to-us avenues like music writing, an artist statement, and a historical comic. We’re grateful for the efforts of our expanded and invigorated editorial team.

In a wicked twist, this issue will be your final serving of cake . . . at least for a while, so savor it. We’re coming for the rest of the pastry case next.

Always save room for dessert,

Aliza Abarbanel and Tanya Bush