Preschool bake sale

[Discopanda]

Hi, I know it's a subject that's been done to death but would really like an opinion. Wednesday is DD1's preschool's Halloween bake sale. Last year was our first as she'd only started in the September, I got all excited and she helped to make spider cupcakes and gingerbread stars with Halloweeny colour icing because I thought the point was that your kids help make the cakes to sell. How wrong was I?! All the other mums brought in shop-bought cakes and DD1's efforts were sold at 20p for 3! I've got all the ingredients to make cupcakes, plus gel colours to do themed icing, shall I bother to bake or just get a couple of packs of cakes from the Co-op to donate? I'm very much swayed to put in the effort because that's what I did when my school had bake sales growing up and it all seems a bit sad buying a cake that's just been bought from the shop and brought in.

[Sirzy]

Do whatever fits for you. Things like that at our school tend to be a mix of shop and homemade

[HermioneWeasley]

It's a mix where we are, but generally they sell them for less than the costs of the ingredients, so it would be less effort to bung the school a few quid!

[HelenaJustina]

I have sympathy for you... I always bake rather than buy for a bake sale but have lowered my level of input! My children little ingrates often choose something from a supermarket.

Do a chocolate traybake with chocolate icing, minimal effort, 16 portions and you get the smug points for home baking...

[TiggyD]

The home made stuff goes first
In every sale I've done.
And those who bought theirs from a shop
Missed out on loads of fun.

So watch as people fight for yours
And watch the mums all weep.
Though I do agree that 3 for 20
Really is far too cheap.

[Jeffreythegiraffe]

Where we are everyone bakes, we get some fantastic cakes.

[Discopanda]

Loving the poem TiggyD!

[hazeyjane]

I hold a cake sale every year at the dd's school - we charge 50p a cake (or 2 cakes if they are tinsy). We get a mix of home made and shop bought - some of the home made are made by the kids, some of them are amazing (one of the mums makes cup cakes professionally), some of them seem to only contain oats and straw - they nearly all sell. I like getting the shop bought ones too, as these are the ones we put out last, as the unopened packets can be saved for future cake sales.

The best year we had was when we realised we were not going to have enough cakes, and I persuaded the local Tesco's to donate a load of doughnuts - my god they were popular, I had celebrity status for the rest of the year after that one ('the doughnut lady' - proud)

Do what makes you happy and let other people do what makes them happy - people are donating, for a good cause, and that is the main thing.

[Joolsy]

I made some apple puff pastry slices for DD1's 1st school bake sale. They weren't fancy looking, or even particularly nice looking, but they were tasty. Near the end of the night I noticed hardly any had shifted. I don't know what happened to them (what does happen to leftover cakes?) so I haven't bothered since. It's just not worth the effort IMO! I always buy a few from the sale though. DD2's class has cakes at school once a week and when it's our turn we always make them though.

[blackteaplease]

If you have time then make the effort. Fancy home made cakes sellout first at our school and pre-school. I have very rarely seen shop bought round here though.

At our pre-school the leftovers are used for snack the next day, sometimes if there is loads they will have another cake sale.

[hazeyjane]

with ours, leftovers are either bagged up and sold at the end of the day at the gate, used for snack/another sale or taken to the old peoples day centre in town.

[GoblinLittleOwl]

Shop-bought cakes? NO!!

[multivac]

FFS - the kids don't give a toss whether they're scoffing lovingly home created artisan bakes, or Mr K's French Fancies. And the money raised is the same.

Anyone who recoils in horror at the thought of a busy mum who also finds baking an incredibly tedious procedure especially if the children have to help grabbing a pack of buns from the supermarket shelf for a bake sale, rather than lovingly bonding with her child over expensive icing and silicone sodding muffin trays probably has too much time on his or her - ah, let's face it, her hands.

[KatieLatie]

Had DS's pre-prep (preschool through year 2) bake sale week before last. 98% were homemade - just saw a couple of sad packs of bought ones.

Had great fun making chocolate cupcakes with chcolate fudge icing and decorating with sweets. DD had great fun helping every step of the way and they were delicious. Sold for £1 each. Only downside was that the ingredients were expensive (lots of chocolate and lots of sweets to decorate) and probably cost more than they made just about!

[MummyPig24]

We rarely get shop bought cakes at the school bake sale. We recently held a Macmillan coffee morning and the only shop bought cake was part of the raffle. I really prefer giving homemade stuff but I appreciate some people may not have the time or resources.

[fredfredgeorgejnrsnr]

Interesting different experiences, vast majority of cakes at my local school and nurseries are home made, quite a few of them made by men too.

Nothing wrong with supplying bought cakes though, certainly a missed opportunity at occupying a kid for an hour or so though.

[BaronessEllaSaturday]

Our pre-school won't allow home made on the grounds of health and safety. they specify everything has to be shop bought and to make doubly sure they request it all in the week prior to the sale. It tends to be quite boring.

[neveramorningperson]

multivac

How can anyone be too busy to make a microwave chocolate cake or plonk a few muffins in the oven?

If you hate baking, that's one thing, nothing wrong with shop bought cakes, but the "I am too important busy for the menial tasks" is a silly excuse. What do your kids eat at home? pills?

[5Foot5]

BaronessEllaSaturday That is really sad and sounds like a typical misuse of "health and safety".

I personally would prefer home-made but I know from other threads on mumsnet that there are people who get all picky about home baking, especially when children have done it. ("Oh they might not have washed their hands!")

[multivac]

I think my strikeout made my true feelings clear, neveramorning. I still don't see why it's so shocking that someone might choose convenience over either home baking, or simply not sending in any contribution at all. And I repeat, the kids don't care - it's the mums who get all squeaky and competitive over fancy frosting and endless fecking pop-cakes, or whatever they're called.

5Foot5 I'm one of those picky parents, too. Largely because I can't trust your average parent to know what 'gluten free', so proudly attached to the ground almond cake they prepared according to Nigella's instructions, really means.

[multivac]

Oh, and I don't own a microwave

[DisappointedOne]

I made these for last year's Xmas fair. I thought they were worth more than 50p each to be honest - that's what they were charging for the shop bought mince pies!

People enjoyed them though, so guess that's the main thing.

[StarlingMurmuration]

Go hard is it to understand that some people might not have the time or energy to bake for a bake sale? If you don't like baking or are a bit crap at it, it's just another chore that you may not have time to do. I'm terrible at baking so my DS will be taking cornflake cakes to school, at best.

[StarlingMurmuration]

*How hard

[Lonecatwithkitten]

Neveramorning you say how can anyone be to busy? Well if the bake sale is the week after I have done an on call weekend and someone is on holiday at work it is possible for me to have worked over 80 hours in the week before the sale. Oh and my partner don't have one so forgive me if as a lone parent working long hours I sometimes buy cake.
I am also a coeliac so have no regular flour in the house and none of your quick recipes are available to me.