Australian-born, San Francisco-based cook and writer Odette Williams wants to simplify the sometimes painstaking process of baking a cake. Her debut cookbook, Simple Cake, can be read as a love letter to Williams’ favorite treat: a nostalgic ode to the joy of homemade cake, with easy mix-and-match recipes that promise a sweet lift any day of the week.
Williams traces her love of cake back to her childhood, when growing up in Sydney, she developed the habit of making cake batter for an afternoon snack. “There was never anything sweet in the house. All that was around was vegemite,” shared in an interview published on Martha Stewart’s website. “I used to come home from school and make cake… I got crafty about scaling a recipe, since I didn’t want to eat a whole one.”
Cake wasn’t just treated as a treat. Over the years, Williams understood the power of baking as a way of lifting the mood, a cure of sorts. “Cake’s made me really happy,” she explains. “It’s picked my spirits up when I’ve been low. It’s put me out of my delirium when I’ve been with a newborn baby. I’ve transported it to a friend with a broken heart, or to a dinner party where it’s served with something sparkling.”
The recipes in her book are her family’s go-tos—cakes that Williams equally enjoys baking and eating. According to Williams, her cakes aren’t extravagant, not too rich or complex, and above all, they’re easy and quick to make. In her book, she also addresses the fundamentals for getting cakes just right, with foolproof recipes that can be cranked out whenever the urge strikes.
With easy recipes and inventive decorating ideas, Williams gives you recipes for 10 base cakes, 15 toppings, and endless decorating ideas to yield a treat. More important to her is the process of baking with patience and love. “There’s a visceral, emotional reason why we bake cakes,” she explains. “These small gestures towards one another can really pick someone’s spirits up and give us that simple happiness. That’s what it’s all about.”
