[2] Between its launch in 1980 and its relaunch in 2011, notwithstanding it having been out of print for a significant portion of the intervening period,[1][3] the recipe book sold more than a million copies – earning its description as a "publishing phenomenon".

[1] Australian demographer Bernard Salt has suggested that the book modernised and "grandified" children's birthday party culture in Australia.

The segment was so popular he expanded it and the following year launched Josh Earl vs. the Australian Women's Weekly Children's Birthday Cake Book,[17] a show that continued through to 2015.

[21] In a September 2018 interview on Throwback: Our Childhoods Revisited series, co-author Pamela Clark noted the heirloom quality of the cookbook, with old copies being passed down in families for generations of cake-making.

[25] Also that year, the book and specifically the difficult-to-make "duck cake", were the subject of an episode of the popular Australian children's television show Bluey[26] – which was then recreated by celebrity chef Andrew Rea in 2024.

[27] In 2023 the Bendigo Art Gallery curated a temporary exhibition about the cultural impact of the Australian Women's Weekly, for which they received over 3,000 community-submitted images of cakes produced from the book.