I've baked my last cake

[Anycrispsleft]

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.

Oh my yes there are. There’s beating the eggs and whisking the whites which are added at different times. I cannot recommend enough The Primrose Bakery chocolate cake recipe with a ganache icing. Best served as a dessert pinged in the microwave for a few seconds to warm the sponge and melt the ganache. Scrumptious.

I have never made a cake.

I also live in Germany, and the school used to send out the cake requests to everyone on the email list - all the parents, male and female. Just ignore the email!

'Du bist eine freche Fotze, wenn es jemals eine gab. Kontaktieren Sie mich noch einmal und ich werde Ihre verdammten Fenster einschlagen.'

Oh, I see it's a Whatsapp to you specifically. Write back "Leider hat meine Bäckerei seit März geschlossen!" with a winky smiley.

Me neither. It just doesn't look enjoyable.

'You've missed the deadline'? Fuck that. It's not a legal requirement.

i nearly never go in Lidl (there was a scandal about 10? years ago about cameras in staff toilets and cameras that could see people's PIN when they paid so Ver.di was boycotting them I'm an Aldi person anyway) but i may look.

I live on the Dutch border so i buy SR flour there, or i order on Amazon. I have Green Dragon SR flour i think. I don't like adding baking powder, it gives cakes a weird Teeth-Feel

Or the organiser

Why would the woman not think OP was going to bake a cake, if she's baked 50+ so far? In her position I'd assume OP enjoyed it and liked showing what a good baker she was, otherwise she wouldn't have been so keen to bake them all!

It’s perfectly fine to say no, but if you’d feel bad, then just buy one. Or make chocolate rice crispie cakes - melted chocolate and rice crispies stirred in - takes seconds and kids like them better than normal cakes anyway. Plus you get to scrap the chocolate out of the pan which has no calories when eaten that way!

Why are you asking me this and not one of the dozens of others who are telling her just to make one herself?

I'd do it this time of you have missed the WhatsApp and you usually don't so they may he relying on you.

But then take proactive action, either upfront saying due to personal circumstances you can no longer offer your support.

But I think you also need to address the other problems which are bigger.

You dont sound happy. You sound like you've been uprooted against your will and like you feel you exist to facilitate the running of everyone else lives. I think you need a serious conversation with DH - about pulling his weight, what he can do to help you in the house, whether there is a timeline to move home if that's what you want.

also can i just say that people saying "meh, cake sales are dumb" - cake. Cake with a capital C, is A Big Thing here. Huge. It's a way of life.

There are probably things (or may have been things, IDK English schools seem to have changed a lot) that people do in the UK that the Germans think are odd. So instead of all the sneery stuff, what OP really needs is to learn how to say "no" in a simple and effective way.

And the dads will be involved. But in other things. There will probably be a class end of year BBQ. (Grillen) and the dads will absolutely be in charge of the grill, the cooking and the meat. Mums make salads and do mum stuff. It's just how it is here. It is changing but it is slow. And it isn't necessarily bad apart from the mum/dad divisions. You just have to keep pointing out, as i did regularly, that some mums are great with power tools and some dads are good at baking. And that not all parents always have time.

(our local kindergarten had a few parents and kids in the local DIY stall on Easter Saturday making waffles to raise funds for some playground equipment. It is a regular thing, waffles, poffertjes, or cake - often in the DIY shop or the big supermarket or both)

Whats wrong with your OP, just ‘whip this up’. It’s easy. 🤣🤣🤣

Fuck that. Just tell them you don’t have time.

So instead of all the sneery stuff, what OP really needs is to learn how to say "no" in a simple and effective way.
Defibitely. And that Germans will be absolutely fine with you just saying "no" pretty bluntly (a Volkssport :))

Can someone translate this into German, replacing the word “salad” with cake?

https://tenor.com/bbCyP.gif

Or dont do it.

it’s so bloody sexist. Why is it always the mums who are expected to give up time - it’s because the school values mums time less.

a man would never be expected to bake a cake for school. A man would never be contacted on a WhatsApp group to express shock he hadn’t replied to say what cake he is booking.

send in ten euros instead of the cake.

We used to live in an area where due to the nature of local employment there were a lot of men working two weeks on/two weeks off ie. lots of perfectly able men kicking about at home while their kids were in school. So in answer to relentless nagging for us (working) mums to bake/make/assist with school events I sincerely enquired ‘why don’t we ever see any dads at these things?’ Tbh it went down like a pint of cold sick.

So I’d buy a whole sheet cake from the local bakers and fire it into a Tupperware. Duty discharged, far better than whatever lopsided monstrosity I’d make anyway and no tension. Your organisation may not be stuck in the 50s though.

And the dads will be involved. But in other things. There will probably be a class end of year BBQ. (Grillen) and the dads will absolutely be in charge of the grill, the cooking and the meat. Mums make salads and do mum stuff. It's just how it is here.

Hmm, so what ‘dad stuff’ do the dads do for the many many cake sales? Which you say are a ‘huge thing?’ Why do the mums have to support their once a year BBQ?

Let the dad make the cake. If he doesn’t want to then let him message and say ‘we aren’t making a cake.’ Why should it all fall to the mum?

I feel sorry for the poor parents' rep if OP does use any of the ruder approaches suggested. All they've done is contact someone who's so far baked a cake for every single event, assuming that she's simply forgotten this time. Would come as a shock if she got a message calling her a "cheeky c**t" as suggested above! 😂

Hmm, so what ‘dad stuff’ do the dads do for the many many cake sales?
Baking cakes, for instance?

I hate bake sales. I remember once baking fairy cakes from scratch. The ingredients cost about £8 and they sold them for 20p each. It would have been far better and wasted less time and effort if I’d just given them the £8. Just say ‘Haven’t got time, Mary. Hope it goes well.’

Traditionally, you beat in the eggs gradually then fold in the flour without beating. With fruitcake alternate egg and flour.
Anyway I’m a ‘never apologise. Never explain believer. Particularly never explain. ‘I can’t (this time)’ or words to that effect.