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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

I've baked my last cake

322 replies

Anycrispsleft · 20/04/2023 05:52

I live in Germany (not by choice, DH got a job here after redundancy). I have two preteen girls and I work about 45 hours a week. Averagely busy. Like I would guess most working parents, particularly mums, most my the weekend is taken up with housework, shopping, home admin etc.

We get frequent (once every 2 months or so) requests from school and the kids' hobbies to bake cakes for cake sales. I've done probably like about 50 cakes at this point. I've never liked it - I don't enjoy baking very much, or having to give up my own time, and I don't think we should anyway be asking strangers for money for things like the kids' school trips when most of the parents in our area are pretty well off (and I would happily offer to cover the costs for another child and have offered to do that in the past).

The latest request came in over Easter and we were away so I didn't see it till I was on the way home. Now I've just got a WhatsApp from the bake sale organiser telling me I have passed the deadline for replying and what cake am I supplying?

AIBU to message her back saying I don't have any time, but here's my husband's number, they can ask him for once? Or just ignore? Or supply a last minute cake? I don't want to piss them off bc the kids enjoy the hobby. I just don't want to do it! I get to Subday night every week and all I have done is work. I don't want to do any more stuff I don't need to.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
6
SpringBunnies · 21/04/2023 19:10

It’s fascinating read about German culture for sure.

Georgia71 · 21/04/2023 19:17

PlasticPotPlant · 20/04/2023 06:21

Keep it simple: I am not supplying a cake for this sale.

No need to offer explanations or apologies.

As a lifelong people-pleaser I am finally grasping people can only get away with being CF (which this person is, with the assumption you will supply a cake) if you enable them.

As an aside, the fact this sort of shit always falls to the woman infuriates me.

This x

User678040 · 21/04/2023 19:32

I made a cake once. Cost me a fortune in ingredients and took an hour to wash up after. Never again. Wasn’t even that nice, but then again I might have felt too resentful to enjoy it.

OP, why don’t you buy a cake? You can get them for about three quid in Tesco. It’s a no brainer, surely.

OliveHenry · 21/04/2023 19:42

I think "why don't you buy a cake" is the new "cancel the cheque" 😂

pollymere · 21/04/2023 19:47

1 egg, 2 Oz sr flour, sugar and Marge. Creaming method then add milk to make dropping consistency. Should make you 12 fairy cakes. My Mum used to ice them in ridiculously bright green or pink icing.

I don't know if you can buy the £1 packs of fairy cakes in Germany but I used to do that when I'd had enough of all the requests!

Jourdain11 · 21/04/2023 19:52

pollymere · 21/04/2023 19:47

1 egg, 2 Oz sr flour, sugar and Marge. Creaming method then add milk to make dropping consistency. Should make you 12 fairy cakes. My Mum used to ice them in ridiculously bright green or pink icing.

I don't know if you can buy the £1 packs of fairy cakes in Germany but I used to do that when I'd had enough of all the requests!

She knows how to make cake! She just doesn't want to 😝

MeMyselfandI2 · 21/04/2023 19:52

This may have been suggested, but if you don’t have issues with the money, just say you’ll send the amount the cake would sell for. It seems silly to me to waste everyone’s time if the solution is that easy.

wentworthinmate · 21/04/2023 19:56

PlasticPotPlant · 20/04/2023 06:21

Keep it simple: I am not supplying a cake for this sale.

No need to offer explanations or apologies.

As a lifelong people-pleaser I am finally grasping people can only get away with being CF (which this person is, with the assumption you will supply a cake) if you enable them.

As an aside, the fact this sort of shit always falls to the woman infuriates me.

This.

cansu · 21/04/2023 20:19

Don't send an arsey message. Just send a polite reply saying that unfortunately, you do not have the time on this occasion.

FoxtrotOscarFoxtrotOscar · 21/04/2023 20:37

Frau, pissen zie auf.

Summerfun54321 · 21/04/2023 20:53

It's 2023, no woman should be baking a cake against her will, wherever she lives.

Pearfacebananapoop · 21/04/2023 21:16

A few comments on here suggesting cake sales not a thing in the UK.

They most definitely are!

We have at least one a term. But hardly anyone bakes for them. Generally it's a box of Mr Kipling. Which means the school ends up with 400 x boxes of 6 apple pies / vienesse whirls. Thus 2400 cakes for a school of 400. Then they say "oh we have some left over would parents like to pop in and buy some cakes" so you buy back the frigging cake you sent in in the first place. Ridiculous!
I rarely even remember to send them in these days.

Katherine1985 · 21/04/2023 21:19

Summerfun54321 · 21/04/2023 20:53

It's 2023, no woman should be baking a cake against her will, wherever she lives.

Nailed it!!

MeandT · 21/04/2023 21:26

This takes me back to early primary days when I would HAPPILY have bunged twenty quid a term into a PTA pot to not have to donate a colour thing for house raffle/do dress up day for XYZ/do cake at half term/send spaghetti in for harvest festival.

At the end of the day, those that have, have and should contribute more, and those that are short won't be buying overpriced cake they don't need to prop up the club of their choice.

It is fundamentally geared up to make more work for the sake of it & is quite wasteful & inefficient, but it dresses it all up a bit & if you have the time then 'commitment to the community' is a marvellous thing 😬

InvincibleInvisibility · 21/04/2023 21:44

For other Mners in countries with non self raising flour, I use plain flour and add baking powder (usually bought in the Uk to avoid those silly mini paper sachets with hardly anything in them).

I don't add baking soda.

So for 150g plain flour in a sponge cake I add 2 teaspoons of baking powder.

300g plain flour for cookies, I add 1 teaspoon of baking powder.

My cookie recipe freezes brilliantly. I cook them before freezing so can literally just take them out the freezer and an hour or so later they're lovely and edible (we like soft cookies not crunchy ones)

Salome61 · 21/04/2023 23:02

I remember when we'd just moved from Twickenham to this NE village in 1999. My late husband had been promoted to director here, and apparently a retired MD lived in the village. This retired MD came to the door one day and asked me to make cakes for the local church fete. I think we'd been in the house a week. I hadn't met him before, we weren't church goers, and he had a really arrogant attitude. I said I would be happy to buy some and donate them. Still makes me feel annoyed all these years later.

PollyThePixie · 21/04/2023 23:31

duc748 · 21/04/2023 19:52

This thread brought back a long-forgotten memory: my Mum used to buy Mary Baker (not Berry, way before her) Cake Mixes for me to make, obv in an attempt to inculcate an interest in cooking in me (I would have been 7 or 8 ish, I think). Older MNers may recall.

https://www.periodpaper.com/products/1956-print-mary-baker-cake-mix-commercial-housewife-rosamund-john-english-woman-175114-ven7-378

I’m in my 60’s and still think of Mary Bakers.

Waterbottleallthetime · 21/04/2023 23:45

Mary Berry does a Victoria sandwich using the all-in-one method. Easy and quick to whip up. Have a look on BBC Goodfood for ingredients and method (basically all ingredients in one bowl, combine with electric whisk and divide between two sandwich tins)
OP says she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t like baking. She works all week and all weekend. Did you not read her post? I think she should give the cheeky organiser her husbands number and they can ask him. In any case, what is this obsession with cake baking in a an era of a pandemic of type 2 diabetes and obesity? I really don’t get it 🤷🏼‍♀️

Waterbottleallthetime · 21/04/2023 23:47

Summerfun54321 · Today 20:53
It's 2023, no woman should be baking a cake against her will, wherever she lives.
THIS WITH BELLS ON!

Waterbottleallthetime · 21/04/2023 23:52

starfishmummy

why do children need to learn how to bake a darn cake? Your comment about this being a perfect opportunity for dentists is spot on! There’s far too much sugar eaten for anyone’s good. Forget baking cakes. Forget eating them too. 🤢

Tiddler39 · 21/04/2023 23:55

FoxtrotOscarFoxtrotOscar · 21/04/2023 20:37

Frau, pissen zie auf.

😂😂😂

WishingMyLifeAway · 22/04/2023 02:56

Well that's fucking rude (of the bake sale person, not you!)

Just send back a 😂emoji.

Fraaahnces · 22/04/2023 04:11

When I lived in the Netherlands. I received a lot of these passive-aggressive bake sale note equivalents as well. I noticed that they increased in number every time I had to fly back to look after my dad who had motor neurone disease. It was like they were punishing me because they disapproved of me leaving my kids or thought I was just on holidays. (In NL very few school mums worked full-time. I found that they had no intention of career progression and were very judgy about women who did. There could also be elements of this.)
They were sooooo patronizing too. “It’s a cultural thing, that’s not the point.” (Ie - I’m currently nursing my dying father in Australia and my DH is doing the parenting - why are you contacting me when you have been actually speaking to him and know what’s going on?) I began to fight fire with fire and return notes saying “You’re probably right. In Australia we would consider it sexist to only ask the mothers to do X, Y or Z. Some children don’t have mothers. Some children have two fathers. That is a very parochial and patronizing cultural approach that puts a lot of pressure on one demographic and excludes another entirely. How very old-fashioned indeed! You’re probably right that it is a cultural difference I don’t understand.”
They gave up on me as a lost cause.

Original poster
Anycrispsleft · 22/04/2023 04:20

Fraaahnces · 22/04/2023 04:11

When I lived in the Netherlands. I received a lot of these passive-aggressive bake sale note equivalents as well. I noticed that they increased in number every time I had to fly back to look after my dad who had motor neurone disease. It was like they were punishing me because they disapproved of me leaving my kids or thought I was just on holidays. (In NL very few school mums worked full-time. I found that they had no intention of career progression and were very judgy about women who did. There could also be elements of this.)
They were sooooo patronizing too. “It’s a cultural thing, that’s not the point.” (Ie - I’m currently nursing my dying father in Australia and my DH is doing the parenting - why are you contacting me when you have been actually speaking to him and know what’s going on?) I began to fight fire with fire and return notes saying “You’re probably right. In Australia we would consider it sexist to only ask the mothers to do X, Y or Z. Some children don’t have mothers. Some children have two fathers. That is a very parochial and patronizing cultural approach that puts a lot of pressure on one demographic and excludes another entirely. How very old-fashioned indeed! You’re probably right that it is a cultural difference I don’t understand.”
They gave up on me as a lost cause.

I was back in the UK clearing out my mother's house, as she died in November. It's staggering how cheeky these people are willing to be - they have no idea what else might be going on in the lives of the people they are trying to order around. I've been really tired since my mother died, the first 6 weeks I had a constant headache and then this year, the first half of the term I felt as if I was just wading through treacle every day. I couldn't take much time off either as the work just piles up in my job. I've just been trying to hang on and do as little as possible that I didn't have to, and I would have (reluctantly) done cake or whatever for them the next time, I just wanted to sit this one out.

OP posts: