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On
Saturday, we fulfilled a dream, We took part in the Melbourne Food and
Wine Festival Cake Picnic; Every one of the 1600 people there brought
along a cake. So many beautiful decorations. So much food. Too much!
It was an unforgettable day of creativity and timetables and picnic
blankets and queues and boxes filled with cake slices, and of course,
many many photos!
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As
we headed towards Kings Domain with our cake boxes - one cake per
person - we knew we were going in the right directions because there
were many others carrying cake boxes. Before we knew it we had reached
the end of the queue. With 1600 people at the even, there were a lot of
queues.
As
we waited, we saw our first few cakes as the founder Elisa Sunga
(right) posed for photos. And took a few as well. She started her
first cake picnic in San Francisco in 2024 because she wanted to eat
lots of cake. She was surprised that almost 200 people attended. It has
since become an international phenomenon. There was a lot of
admiration in the queue for the cakes but I am not sure if others like
me did not recognise her til later.
When you read about Cake Picnic online, it says there is one rule: no cake no entry! Actually there are many rules about what you must bring (6 items - a signed waiver, our tickets, ID, an uncut cake that is 20cm in diameter and 7.5cm high, a cake slicer and a label with the cake name and ingredients. The waiver is about being food safe and the Cake Picnic organisers bearing no responsibility for any adverse affects from eating the cakes. Then there are rules about when and where to place your cakes, to photograph cakes and to collect slices of cakes.
The rules were pretty intense but I appreciated that there was a lot of thought that went in to managing 1600 people and 1600 cakes.
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This
is the cake marque that was divided into four zones. We requested to
be allocated to zone A, which had sections for vegan cakes and gluten
free cakes. By the time we dropped our cake there, the long tables with
white table clothes were already heaving under all the amazing cakes. There were many beautiful cakes and others made by people like those behind us in a queue, who were more interested in other people's cakes than their own.
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My cake was a Coconut Chocolate cake that was based on this Coconut and chocolate chunk cake.
I chose a favourite vegan cake in solidarity with Sylvia. I have made
many vegan cakes but am not used to doing layer cakes to be 7.5cm high.
It needed one practice cake, many plans, and a lot of anxiety which I
will discuss at another time.
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Sylvia made a Matcha layer cake which
had been green when I first made it but was brown on this occasion.
The colour did not matter with all her beautiful piping of frosting, the
apricot jam filling and dried orange slices. She then spent time on
both our cakes placing gold stars on them.
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Our
mouths were agape at all the talent. Every where we looked we were
gasping in delight. Of course we could not resist some sneaky photos of
cakes before the official photography time.
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Our
tickets included quite a bit of merchandise. Most of it could only be picked up by joining a queue. The most important 'freebie' to pick up was
the cake box. They were huge pizza boxes. It seemed the wrong size
for cake but was perfect. Look at this photo of the pile of boxes.
Dilmah and Queen were sponsors. The Dilmah iced tea was put out in bowls and I grabbed a peach flavoured one. It was nice but I am less keen on these drinks that aren't fizzy. I was more impressed with the mocktails at the Quench Club. I had a non-alcoholic Rose tea spritz: Dilmah Elixir of Pure Ceylon Black Tea with Rose & Vanilla, strawberry syrup, non-alc gin, pink peppercorn, verjus, tonic and soda.
I also queued for the Queen goodie bag. It was a reuseable Queen bag with a Cake Picnic branded bottle of vanilla syrup and a choice of a wooden spoon and a tea towel. They had fun with the Queen theme making their stall in the shape of a castle and a photo opportunity with royal red velvet armchairs. Sylvia was happy to get iced latte. But she never found where people got the iced matcha and I never found where people got the bottles of fizzy water.
I appreciated that once we were at the picnic, we didn't have to pay for drinks and merch. After all, we had paid $75 each to bring a cake to a picnic!
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Many
people brought picnic rugs to sit and enjoy their cakes. It was also a
good to have a base to rest while we waited, eat our cake and leave bags. (We had to take
our own cake carriers once we dropped off our cake on the required cake
board. There was no space to store 1600 containers!) The pleasantly warm autumn day was perfect weather for sitting in the shady park!
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There was a welcome to country and Elisa Sunga got up to tell us how excited she was about the picnic. The outcome of the judging was announced. I heard it was an anchovy cake and shuddered at the horror of fish in a cake but when I saw a picture of it on social media, the cake was crafted as a cute anchovies tin. I will never know how it tasted!
In
fact I will never know how a lot of these 1600 cakes tasted. There is
no way anyone could taste all the cakes or ever see them. They split everyone into two teams and gave each five minutes to view and take photos. This might
have been easier if it didn't involve sharing the space with 800 other
eager photographers. The above photo was a rare moment when I could
photograph the aisles when they weren't crowded. We were also expected
to stay in our zone. All these rules felt very limiting!
So
many amazing designs and yet so little time! There were many beautiful
cakes. In the above collage you can see fancy piping, cute toadstalls
and flowers, freeze dried berries, a heart shape, popcorn, figs and gold
leaf, mixed lollies. The suggestions for cake decoration included fun
shapes, tiers and having the words cake picnic! Let's take a closer
look at some cakes:
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So
gorgeously simple! Yet this would have been challenging to me to get
the 3 layers even, the piped frills even and the flowers and fruit
arranged so charmingly.
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So
colourful and joyful! Lots of flowers made out of chocolate buttons
and M&Ms with lifesavers and clinkers as the centres of the flowers.
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So
cute! We loved this dome of a cat with the shaggy brown icing, droopy
whiskers and the little white paws peeking out at the bottom.
So
much fun! Miffy, two capybaras, a Barbie version of a Dolly Varden
cake, and a Jelly Cat Carrot Cake. Yes there was a cake based on a soft
toy based on a cake!
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So
strikingly simple! The white piped lines on a purple cake, depicted a
flower, a microphone, palm tree, wave and a flag. It was a fine way to
show some of the baker's life. The flag reminded me that it was a place
of beauty devoid of politics.
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So
much inspiration! I loved the brilliant simplicity of this Aussie
biscuit themed cake. It was just white icing with a bit of piping along
the edges and then iconic biscuits stuck over the sides and a few
fondant daisies, as well as cake picnic written on top of the cake.
This looked like the sort of cake I would love to try that does not feel
so challenging.
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So
iconic! We were so excited to see the legendary duck cake from the
Australian Women's Weekly birthday cakes cookbook. I have looked
through that cookbook so many times and everyone knows of the weirdness
of the potato crisps for a beak. It was like seeing a celebrity! There
was also a variation on the pool cake from the same book.
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Finally our 7 minutes arrived when we could fill our boxes with slices of cakes from the cakes in zone A. There were four 7 minute sessions for cake cutting, based on the colour of wristband we were given randomly. Ours was the last one but there was plenty of cake to try.
Unless you were a vegan. We were surprised (and disappointed) at how few vegan cakes were brought to the picnic. Where were all the people who share amazing vegan cakes online? It made me glad I brought a vegan cake. A few of them had peanuts so that made it more restrictive for my vegan daughter with a peanut allergy.
Above is her box of cake slices. On a normal day this is a lot of cake so she was fine but one of the joys of the cake picnic is tasting lots of different cakes. But Sylvia was happy to see lots of cakes and she wasn't that hungry anyway. Only two days before she had spent hours in the Emergency Department at the hospital with an IV drip to manage her tonsillitis! She was just happy to be at the picnic and see lots of amazing cakes. And she loved the salted caramel cake.
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I did not have her restrictions and had a far larger selection. This is my cake box with some amazing cakes. At this point they still looked quite neat. The stipulation that everyone bought a cake slice (or cake knife) was brilliant in helping us to cut slices of cakes. Even so, after this session I was so glad to find a box of wet wipes was provided because my hands were messy and sticky with frosting. Many cakes were at least two layers so they weren't the easiest cakes to cut and lift, even with the cake slice.
I found it was far more fun to admire the uncut cakes than to choose which ones to try. I much prefer a squat cake with lots of fruit and bits than a tall one with lots of frosting and layers. And there are many flavours and textures that you can't discover just by looking. I did draw the line at a rainbow cake that had a note saying it was from Coles supermarket.
My favourite cake of the day was a tahini chocolate cake that I found when there wasn't much left. I was drawn in by the sesame toffee shards. This chocolate cake was soft and rich and the tahini flavours shone through in the frosting! I also really loved a soft pumpkin cake with crunchy toffee in the frosting. Also kudos to people who brought along the Dubai chocolate cake, a checkerboard purple and white ube cake and a wonderfully soft pandan chiffon sponge.
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After everyone had their first cake cutting session, there was then a free-for-all chance to get "seconds" from any zone. I liked that this was how they phrased it as though we had all just had one dainty piece of cake! In reality it was pure gluttony and I do not say that proudly. I had some qualms about the excessive food. If every person brings a cake then there is enough for every person to eat a whole cake. Which is more than enough for anyone! But there were so many cakes to taste.
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On this second servings, the cakes were crumbling towers of crumbs, just a few lonely slices leftover in a sea of frosting or empty plates. Not many cakes were more interesting on the inside than the outside. (I did enjoy seeing the pink and green checkerboard innards in the above cake.) The saddest cakes were those that were uncut. I was glad I didn't see many of these.
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By now the tables were looking a mess and it was harder to find pieces
of cake to sample. On the first cake cutting session I had tried to
look at the ingredients lists and it was tough. I had hoped in vain to
find a rogue vegan cake had snuck in among the regular cakes! After the crowds had filled their cake boxes, it was even harder to see the cake names and ingredients; many of the signs had frosting smeared over them or had just disappeared. By the end, every chocolate cake looked the same, it was impossible to tell the difference between the red velvet cakes and identifying anything other than cake and frosting was a challenge.
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An announcement at the end of the seconds told us that it was now time to leave the remaining cake so that the Cake Picnic team could clear away all the cakes into the rubbish bins due to health and safety issues. I was horrified at all that cake gone to waste. Not my cake! I went to our cakes and found most were gone but there was a few pieces of each left. I added these to my cake box (which is one of the reasons it got so full after I went for seconds) and took our cake servers so we did not have to return. I could not bear to see it all cleared.
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Despite my misgivings, I was glad to be able to go to one of Elisa Sunga's Cake Picnics. It was a truly unique experience but once was enough. We left with amazing memories and a heavy cake box as we walked back to our carpark at Fed Square. The cake box looked huge on our small kitchen table and too messy to share. We picked at the cakes for a day and then put the remains in the freezer. That was plenty of sugar and fun for some time.
Also see the Guardian review of the Cake Picnic (24 March 2026)
More fun foodie outings on Green Gourmet Giraffe:
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