The changing tastes of Cake Zine

Tanya Bush is one of the editors of Cake Zine, the literary food magazine we delivered to Stack subscribers in October this year. When she spoke to us for last month’s Magazine Club evening, she’d literally just stepped out of the kitchen at Little Egg, the Brooklyn restaurant where she works as a pastry chef. Sitting upstairs from the restaurant, she spoke quickly and enthusiastically about her work, which includes not just the restaurant and the magazine, but also an upcoming book, Will This Make You Happy (available for preorder now).

She’s clearly extremely driven and purposeful in her work, but she says her first foray into food publishing came by accident, when she and her friend Aliza Abarbanel were working on a community bake sale in 2021. Cake was having a moment in the strange, disrupted days following the pandemic, and the pair decided that it would be fun to make a two-part zine presenting different perspectives on the suddenly buzzy dessert.

Cake Zine: Sexy Cake came first, followed by Cake Zine: Wicked Cake, a literary food magazine designed by Noah Emrich, who had also designed the flyers for the bake sale where the first plans were hatched. It was immediately clear that there would be an appetite for this new publication (more than 300 people turned up for the launch of the first issue) and so the pair set to work on issues about other foods.

Humble Pie followed, and we delivered that to our subscribers in July 2023, and subsequent issues turned to Tough Cookie, Candy Land, Daily Bread, and then Forbidden Fruit, which we once again sent to our subscribers. The next issue is going to mark another departure, styled as Steak Zine, and packed with stories inspired by meat.

I’ve loved watching the evolution of this magazine, and I’m looking forward to seeing what Steak Zine will bring, and what will come next. You can watch the full conversation with Tanya on the video below, and of course we’d love to have you join our next Magazine Club conversation. I’m going to be speaking with Greg Stanley, editor-in-chief of music magazine Off Licence, on Thursday 8 January. Just sign up for a free ticket via Eventbrite and I’ll see you on Zoom…

cakezine.com
tanyabush.com/Book