To find complicated cake recipes unnecessary, especially for a school cake sale

[Vickisuli]

We had cake sales at both schools today. I did my usual and baked a massive batch of basic sponge cakes and then put some garish halloween themed icing on top, nothing massively complicated but just fun pumpkin shapes, strips of white icing to make mummies etc. It took me a little while doing the icing but I quite enjoy it and the kids LOVED them.

At said cake sale I find the usual selection of similar to mine, a fair few chocolate crispie cakes with halloween sweeties on etc but also some (to my mind) weirdly complicated cakes eg medjool date brownies. One of the mums told me she'd tried out a new recipe which involved cream cheese icing and realised it couldn't be left out so had had to bring them down at the last minute. Another one had made salted caramel brownies. They are bloody lovely but they cost an absolute fortune to make (I know because she gave me the recipe a while back) and are very labour intensive as you have to make the salted caramel separately first. When I said to her, "They're lovely but they're way too good for a cake sale, I'd only make them as a treat", she replied "They're the only thing I know how to cook".

How can this possibly be true? And why do people do such expensive/complicated recipes for cakes which are going to be eaten by kids? I have tried many cake recipes in my time and the vast majority (salted caramel brownies are an exception) are a lot of effort for a cake which is pretty blah. I tend to just use a basic sponge recipe and tweak it. I made cakes for DH's work, and just to make it a bit more interesting and less kiddy, I added cinnamon and mixed spice to my basic sponge. He had people asking for the recipe.... I was like, it's just a normal sponge cake with some spices thrown in. I bet if I googled cinnamon cake I'd find some super complicated recipe involving expensive ingredients which probably wouldn't taste any better than mine.

Seriously, I really don't get why people bother with cake recipes most of the time. Just use eggs, flour, butter, sugar and whisk it all up. It takes about 10 minutes and makes delicious cakes. And primary school children only care about the icing anyway.

Only eaten by kids?
Do the staff not support the sale then?
I would so have bought myself something to have with my coffee.
Either a plain sponge coverred in strippy mummy icing made by children or a salted caramel treat. What to chose?

Knock, I would guess 6/4/4/2 is 6 oz self raising flour, 4 oz caster sugar, 4 oz fat and 2 eggs - simple bun recipe.

I do a mixture of buns and fancier things. Funnily enough, nobody's ever complained about either... In general if they haven't had to bake them it's a win

(As an aside, why can't I find normal size bun cases anywhere? I don't want to make muffins or cupcakes, just little fairy cakes!)

"That affects texture, not colour. You need to add a lot of liquid red food colouring for the colour."

Doesn't have to be liquid- my recipe has yoghurt in it and I add paste colour to the yoghurt. Much easier to control the colour that way.

I've never managed to get the gel colours to be vivid in red velvet. They always end up reddy brown. Perhaps the cocoa I'm Isis g is too high quality.

I don't think mine is as red as a bought one- is yours?

It was better when I used liquid food colour. Bournville Cocoa is paler in colour than Green and Blacks - perhaps next time I'll try that.

Oh curse you nest of vipers. You've frightened OP away and I'll never get the salted caramel brownie recipe!

here's Jamie but I bet you could use Carnation caramel condensed milk straight from the tin.

I've done a bit of googling and had decided Jamie's was the one I was going to try in the absence of this specific really amazing, really expensive recipe...

I wonder if the woman with the complicated cake was upset by being told her cakes weren't right for the school cake sale...
Why bring someone down for making an effort?
If you think they cakes are nice, tell her that instead of going for the negative angle ("you shouldn't have made them for the cake sale").

I don't understand why someone should make something simple, just because it's for children or because it will be sold cheaply. Kids do know the difference between good and bad cake.
Surely the point is to sell the cakes and make a bit of money for the school/charity. Making something delicious that sells surely beats making something that will just be binned because it didn't sell.

I make caramel brownies with Carnation, it works fine.

I can't imagine anything worse than a cake sale full of boring plain sponges.

I made chocolate coca cola muffins last time. Went down a treat.

My fairy cakes always come out with nipples on them and people laugh. I am a poor excuse for a woman that is why I bake something else.

Don't see anything wrong with a variety of cakes. If people are happy to make difficult or complicated things I don't see why you should care.

I consider sponge cakes with fun icing complicated.

Cookies are much easier and always go down well as are my easy choc cake, almond marzipan cake, banana cake and baileys cream cheese cake

I'd do a complicated recipe but i absolutely despise icing anything - shoot me op!

Some people bake for fun you know. I have a friend like that who enjoys trying out new recipes. The medjool date brownies sound like exactly the kind of thing she would try out for a bake sale.

I used to love baking too although don't do it so often anymore. For some people it's a hobby so they're happy to spend money and time on it.

YABVU - aside from anything else, medjool date brownies are the easiest thing in the world to make (over and above cupcakes with faffy icing!).

Bag of dates, cup of hot water, bit of bicarb, some room temp butter in a big bowl, stir till butter melted, leave to soak while MNing, drinking wine, doing other stuff.

Come back, blitz with blender, stir in eggs / vanilla / flour / cocoa / baking powder / bag of choc melts, pour into oven, bake 50mins (again during which you can MN, drink wine, do other stuff).

Cool in tray, cut into squares and they are fudgy and chocolatey and delicious. And healthy on account of the dates :) my kids love them.

I also like baking different things for the school sales - Nigella's burnt butter cupcakes always go down well (basic cupcakes but you melt the butter until it's a dark brown colour and smells of caramel first). I think the classic sponge recipes are always too dry and boring - combined with sickly sweet icing are the last things to go.

Anyone else reminded of the Lemon Drizzle fiasco thread a while back?

People have funny ideas about cakes. I've got a workmate who started talking one day about how ground almonds are really expensive. A hangover from her youth I suspect, a bit like my PILs only having 10 minute phonecalls if they make the call talk for hours if we phone them

I always make 'fancy' recipes, it's fun to try something different and with a DS with allergies I'm always on the lookout for new ideas. Don't think any of them are particularly complicated though, all cake is pretty straightforward TBH.

OP here, just dropping in, only scanned responses but just to say:

I do feed my children more interesting cakes, they LOVE the cinnamon ones, and the salted caramel brownies but I wouldn't bother for a school cake sale. I do like experimenting, its just that I often find cake recipes a let down and that they don't taste much different to a much easier or basic recipe. Eg ones that say, separate the eggs and whisk them up and then gradually add them in - couldn't detect any difference compared with my chuck it all in approach.

What I couldn't understand is how she can know how to make something with several stages of complexity to it, but not know how to chuck four ingredients in a bowl and mix it up.

I'd say nearly all our cakes are bought by or for kids, and the ones without brightly coloured icing and sweets on top get left til last.

I'd have to look out the salted caramel brownie recipe, it's expensive because you're supposed to use high cocoa no added sugar chocolate. Maybe 'expensive' is all relative. Giddylimit, I'd say ground almonds are expensive. I looked at them the other day because I thought about making Bakewell Tart, and the quantity I'd need for a single recipe cost as much as buying several bakewell tarts.

I did indeed say to my friend how delicious the brownies are (and have said so in the past, hence why I asked her for the recipe) I just said that I would've kept them all for myself and my family if I'd made them. There was no criticism involved and none taken by her.

The point about people spending more on baking cakes than the school makes comes down to people spending too much on their cakes. I use basics flour, eggs and supermarket own stork plus normal granulated sugar, so I reckon including the icing, my massive batch of cakes cost less than £4 of ingredients I already had in store. They sold the cakes for 3 for £1, therefore say there were 36 of them (there were probably more than that) it made the school £12. My friend's delicious batch of 12 brownies probably cost about £5 or £6 in ingredients, and made the school £4. If you can afford it fine, but if you can't then make cheaper cakes, they taste just as good :-)

I do appreciate that not everyone enjoys baking or has time to do it but there is no one-up-woman-ship going on at ours, nobody really knows who's made what or not at all. The kids come out, grab cakes, throw money in the pot and scoff them. The only reason I knew which were hers was because I'd had the recipe from her. There's certainly no criticism implied or otherwise of people who didn't bring cakes. I must be lucky but I never see any of this 'playground politics' I hear so much about on here at our schools.

I can't win here as I will be accused of stealth boasting but I know that my cakes made with cheap ingredients taste just as good because people are always saying how delicious they are (to the point of people frequently suggesting I should cake-make as a business). So it's not a case of making something crap because they are just kids, it's a case of, there's no need to spend so much/ follow a complicated recipe to make something delicious.

If there was ever a bake sale, I would go to tesco and get them from there.

I love baking but whenever I bake for parties my nerves gets the better of me and I mess it up.

I love bake sales and go to many McMillan once, it's just an excuse to eat a range of tasty cakes with the knowledge that I'm helping a good cause - guilty free cakes.

If all there was to offer was basic cupcakes then I probably just wouldn't go.

YABU.

it would be so dull if fairy cakes were the only option. If people want to do something else that is completely up to them. If they're using up endangered medjool dates or there's a worldwide shortage of salted caramel you may have a point but otherwise it smacks of sour fairy cakes grapes.

I think you need to ramp your baking up a gear.

But again, what would be the point of everyone making the same thing?

You just come across as so judgemental. Yes it's fine for you to use cheap ingredients, which are less healthy, and spend hours icing cakes.

Just as it's equally fine for people to make something simple with expensive good quality ingredients. Some people, including me, find a complex cake far more interesting and enjoyable than doing fiddly icing.

It's voluntary. It's a donation. It doesn't matter at all. If we all took into account the cost of our voluntary donations of baked goods, our time, etc, versus the amount made we would soon stop having bake sales and instead all just chuck a fiver in. But it's about the involvement and community spirit and I don't see why you care. For all you knew your friend had a batch in the freezer and thought she'd rather spend the afternoon doing something with her children than making some cheaper cakes for the sale. But it's none of your business so get a life!