Cooking & Entertaining

Mali Bakes: Make and decorate the retro cakes of your dreams

It’s cake time! Start your delicious adventure in cake baking and retro decorating with this delightful baking book.

Embark on a journey through cake making, the Mali Bakes way. This beautiful book is your ultimate guide to baking and decorating the cakes of your dreams! Start your adventures with simple cakes like apple and yuzu upside-down cake or Thai tea chiffon cake, before progressing to layer cakes in uniquely delicious flavor combinations—think buttermilk vanilla cake with brown butter custard, or pistachio cake with cardamom-roasted rhubarb.

Along the way, you will be introduced to different cake-making methods and decorating finishes to learn how to make and pipe perfect decorations with buttercream. Adventurous bakers can test their skills with fifteen decorating projects to transform layer cakes into showstopping masterpieces, perfect for all of life’s celebrations. Mali Bakes is a delightful celebration of color and baking and proves that cakes can be fun and full of flavor.

About The Author

Patti Chimkire is a pastry chef who runs Mali Bakes, the much-loved bakeshop and cake studio in Melbourne, Australia, that brings together her twin loves: color and baking. Inspired by the vintage cake decorating books of the 1970s and started as a lockdown side hustle, her business features modern interpretations of classic vintage-inspired decorating aesthetics with bold flavors and contemporary colors.

  • Publish Date: October 28, 2025
  • Format: Hardcover
  • Category: Cooking - Methods - Baking
  • Publisher: Smith Street Books
  • Trim Size: 8-1/4 x 10-5/6
  • Pages: 352
  • US Price: $40.00
  • CDN Price: $55.00
  • ISBN: 978-1-923239-20-3