The Sydney Swans have celebrated the club’s 150th birthday in the most iconic Australian way: with an Australian Women’s Weekly duck cake.
Here at PEDESTRIAN.TV, we are deeply invested in the AWWCBCU (Australian Women’s Weekly Cookbook Cinematic Universe). In my time at this masthead I have witnessed multiple coworkers try (and fail) to make some of these cakes before, so you can imagine my surprise when I saw that the Swans were going to let a bunch of footy players take a crack at the magnum opus of Aussie kids birthday cakes. Everyone shoots for Hamish Blake cake levels, but most end up in nightmarish Jacinda Ardern cake territory.
On Thursday morning, the Sydney Swans took to Instagram to share various players from the AFL and AFLW teams’ attempts at the notoriously difficult cake.
“Recreating this iconic cake for our 150th birthday as it’s as close to a swan as we could get,” the video said.
CONTENT WARNING: NIGHTMARE FUEL
Full credit to the boys (and girls) here because I think the Swans social media team were setting them up for failure, but you have to give points for effort.
Baking is a genuinely difficult skill to perfect, and when you add in the difficulty of carving, icing and decorating, this is not a task for the faint-hearted.
It’s unclear how long the players had to complete their cakes, but speaking from experience (my mum making cakes for me as a kid, not me actually *doing* the baking) these things take hours, if not DAYS to pull together.
While points can’t be awarded for execution here, you have to give it to Will Hayward for proudly posing behind his monstrosity like it his first-born child.
But if you thought that was nightmare-inducing, brace yourselves because AFLW defender Lucy McEvoy gave us a duck so terrifying that it actually justifies my phobia of birds.
“It’s all about the effort, right?” the club captioned the post, alongside an apology to Australian Women’s Weekly.
And honestly, they’re right. It’s the thought that counts here — and when the Sydney Swans sit comfortably at the top of the AFL ladder with 12 wins in 13 games.
Hopefully, if they manage to win the season the club can splash out on a professional to bake them up a victory duck cake.
