Ahhhhh! Bloody cake sales!!!

[Fresta]

AIBU to think these are such a stupid idea for raising money? DDs teacher is constantly requesting cakes to sell to raise money for X Y and Z and then they sell them for 20p each. I can't make them for 20p by the time I have trailed to the shops and bought the ingredients and then there's the time spent bloody making them! It would be so much easier and cost the same to just pay for whatever it is!

Goingtobeawsome let's assume that everyone who bakes for the cake sale would be willing to donate the cost of the ingredients instead. If the cost of the ingredients was £120 for the whole sale abut the school has sold them for £100 then the school has lost out on £20. And children don't get to eat cake. In all honesty, I'd rather my DD didn't buy cake at school, she has enough sweet treats and I now know about the conditions that some people bake cakes in.

So it would be better to hold a virtual cake sale where we skip out on the baking and eating and just hand over £5 or £10. And I'd have more time to MN too.

Absolutely agree OP. I am not a baker of cakes. I am not good at baking cakes. I do not enjoy baking cakes. I don't even like cakes. So when I've had a request for a bring and buy cake bake, I have always gone to my local rustic bakery and paid a fiver for them to sell me a cake that I can take out of the cellophane and put on one of my own (mostly redundant) cake plates, and pretend that it's one of my own. A cake that I paid five pounds for might go for £1.50. And it's not just cakes. In my local school it's also selling the pupils' "artwork" by auction. I've spent a fortune on that, only to take the artwork I have purchased directly to the red cross shop. I did not want it. I did not need it. I would rather just have donated the money to whatever cause directly - without having the hassle of getting rid of the stuff I didn't actually want in the first place. Yes, OP. I feel your pain

I have a similar rant about my sons pre-school. They do a fete at xmas and summer and its held jointly with the church. Last summer I baked sponge cakes and they sold at 30p a cupcake and £3 a whole cake. But at xmas I made 10 xmas cakes. I lovingly soaked lots of fruits in brandy, then made the cakes with lovely butter and stuff, fed the cakes with brandy, marzipan and icing on top and tasteful star decorations. And they bloody sold each one for £2.

At the summer fete they asked for donations of stuff to raffle/tombola etc. I had an unwanted gift with the receipt for £25 and I even said I'd happily take it back and donate the cash, but they said no. Then they sold it for £3.

To make matters worse I was talking to the pre-school about something else and the manager explained their fundraising breakdown. Basically the church sets all the prices, takes everything and then gives them 20%. I think this is pretty outrageous as the stalls are all run by parents, and most of the stuff sold is donated by parents. I think if we all knew that first we might donate money directly to the pre-school instead. I think the church is good and does good work etc, but I wouldn't spend time and money donating to it, unlike the pre-school who I actually want to have my money. This summer I gave them money direct and they were very pleased!

It's the low price that's the issue really isn't it. At work when we have a Macmillian Coffee Morning we charge £1 a slice (at least 12 slices per cake) and have a raffle and make about £500. But I suspect even that is selling the cakes for much less than they could, I've just checked my local naice cafe and they charge between £2 to £3 for a slice of cake in their shop.

But schools aim for everything to be accessible to all children. Charging £1 per cake would be a genuine restriction for some families.

I think the issue is not making clear how much they intend to sell things for before asking for cakes to sell.

NEVER EAT COMMUNAL CAKE. Chances are its been made with some kids bum hands.

And they are usually grim.

Why can't schools be more innovative in raising money, cake sales are fueling the obesity crisis, we should be promoting more healthy ways to raise money, same goes for charity cake sales - they are not healthy, we are we promoting cakes when we should be supporting healthy eating. Each year our local sports centre does a charity cake sale for Cancer Research, i'm sorry but hasn't the penny dropped ?? We need to cut our sugar intake, it's responsible for obesity, cancer and type 2 diabetes, when are people going to take notice, we have a responsibility to our kids to be teaching them healthy eating habits for a healthy lifestyle. No more cake sales please !!!

I buy them from Poundland. I dont even bother to ice if plain. My mother was the same. She always said Marks & Spencers were better bakers than her.we are also required to buy cakes back so it cancels itself out.

I would simply prefer to donate a couple of quid.

I remember someone asking me how long it took me to make the cakes I'd made, and I answered 30 mins for the cakes and 2 hours to scrub the kitchen to surgical standards beforehand. I would never bake for other people with anything but, if be mortified if anyone got a bug or thought my kitchen not clean enough. Likewise I do it all when Dc are in bed, so no dirty fingers poking the mixture.

juicy= I completely agree.

Promoting cakes like this is not a good message, it gives the idea that cakes are something wonderful to behold, when in reality they are grease ridden and full of sugar, especially those ones with the cupcake frosting- like eating lard.
Many kids would even have one of these confiscated from their packed lunch box.
There are two women at our local primary who pride themselves on their baking and do the whole lot- the cup cakes with imaginative frosting, lemon drizzle cake, chocolate fudge cake, they are clearly adept and put in a lot of time and effort into their creations.

The sad thing is both these women are morbidly obese, they struggle to walk, their kids have big weight problems too.
I find it sad that they are using their creative energies to feed themselves and encourage others to eat these foods that are clearly doing harm.

I completely agree with the healthy eating sentiments. I love cake, it's a lovely treat and baking is an enjoyable creative activity for me- when I choose to do it. But cake is something that should be seen as a treat. DDs school seem to have cake sales for every bloody occasion- her teacher has a sugar obsession- you should see the amount of sweets and biscuits she buys to give to the kids- every school event from festivals, christmas, easter, eid, divali, queens birthday, every trip, rewards for hard work x 10, kids being off school sick, birthdays, every time they watch a bloody film at school, sports day, all involve sugary treats.

And charging 20p means kids can just buy more cakes as most just bring a £1 or 50p as 20p is very little to most families at our school. I wouldn't let my dd eat 3 or 4 cakes at a time but many parents don't seem to mind.

But cake is something that should be seen as a treat.

That's the problem. If we start portraying cakes and unhealthy things as or rewards we make them even more appealing.

Teachers are not allowed to give sweets or cakes to children at my local primary school.

If we set up patterns of giving sugar to children we set up very unhealthy eating patterns which often carry on into adult like. Food becomes surrounded with emotion, and sugar becomes a self soother that many turn to in order to feel the good emotions they have learned to associate with junk food.

We had one at work. ( large hospital) and raised £600! Minimal effort for great profit and good fun too.

I always thought the point of cake sales at school (and any other fundraising event) was to teach the children to be proactive and work for what they want. Its more about setting a good example; throwing money at a problem and then moving on is not a life skill really. And its certainly not an option for a lot of families.

Some of the examples on here have me in hysterics. Why on earth would people go to extreme lengths to spend a fortune creating some sort of cake masterpiece? Bake some fairy cakes for minimum cost and let the school sell them for 20-30p. Its illogical to think that the school have time to consider the specialised ingredients, time and effort and then apply a price tag to demonstrate their appreciation, these cakes are being sold to children! How can they be expected to fork out £5 for a cake because you decided to make/buy something that extravagant? No one expects a masterpiece.

In ours it's also about being sociable, the whole school is invited, in summer we hold them outside under the trees, children run around and play after they've had their cake, adults chat, and money raised as well, they are really nice events, not just fundraisers.

Pans that isn't the case at ds1 school. They are part of a bigger fete/sale and have lots of unrelated people coming to shop there. You see lots of strangers coming along to stock up on cakes and jams and plants and such. At s bog standard school sale to kids I agree (although because my school eat cake everyday as part of their limited diets at home I do use really good ingredients anyway just because they eat so little of anything else I'm desperate to get nutrients into them).

Yep. I loathe the cake sales. I hate having to cook for them and I always forget my purse for the buying bit.

I understand it's annoying if you have spent a lot on ingredients but surely the most important thing is the children can all afford to buy one and enjoy it cake sales and school fetes are the kind of thing that sticks in your childhood memory this is more important than the money made.

Cake sales only raise money if the cakes are sold for profit! Otherwise people might as well just donate the money and save the time!

this!

DW got sucked into making a cake that was practically given away considering how much she spent on icing etc.

Perhaps put a value on the cake saying how much it cost in ingredients? So people start getting a clue.

Or like people say get the school to say how much they are going to sell cakes for and you can make a cake to match the price?

All the takings are pure profit. The only "loss" is the lost extra profit they forgo by not pricing the cakes properly.

Last time I baked for a cake sale I was second in the queue to buy. Not one of my cupcakes was on the display. DD later said she's seen the teachers eating them earlier in the day. Fine if they donated..... Ours are also sold for 20p each so the main winner is the supermarket. I donate cheap bought ones now!

I don't bother anymore. They weren't covering the costs of even the basic ingredients, that would be value eggs, flour, sugar, butter. I hate fund raising where more money ends up in a business than to the charity. I was pleased with the fudge I made and bagged up into little portions sold at 50p per bag. I was impressed with the teacher for a change slight surprise then quickly asked me about pricing. Our fairs our now colour coded and we had to take in something brown this year to sell, I think she was pleased to get anything saleable, must have made 3 or 4 times my investment.

I hate them but I am a stickler for hygiene standards and OH has a nut allergy.

We don't bake for them nor do we buy any at the sales because I don't want to buy a cake that someone has baked at home on the same worktops they let their cats walk all over or not washed their hands before preparing or [insert any grimy bad habit] .

Its the same as me refusing to buy food from anywhere that doesn't have a 4 star or above food hygiene rating.

I don't know who has baked what, what ingredients go into them, if they are in date, if they are clean hand washing people.

My arse has fallen out a few times in the past due to food poisoning never again.