Growing up I was obsessed with the colourful dessert cookbooks we had on our bookshelf. The Jello brand cookbook was a particular favourite of mine since it featured an array of wobbling, jewel-like creations in every colour of the rainbow.

When I moved to Australia and my partner’s grandmother showed me pictures of all the wonderful cakes she made for him and his cousins, I was enamoured. There was something so charming about the cakes themselves, made packet cake mix and frosted with butter knives, they were unpretentious. And it wasn’t just Bev’s personal approach to grandchildren’s birthday cakes. As I grew to learn, this book is a bit of a legend. Children across Australia, and now across generations, have grown up baking and eating cakes from this book.

With my newfound knowledge I set out on a mission: bake the most iconic cakes from the book, share them with my loved ones, and immortalise them in oil paint. The project is ongoing as I continue to fall in love with cakes from the book through the stories and memories of my friends.