Daughter wants to do a cake stall aibu to say no?

[Lilacbluewaters]

dd and I love baking together and now at school they do cake sales which she now wants to do her own on the green outside our house for neighbours/children that play here.
i feel a bit awkward with the idea of it, should I say no?

Have you never heard of the concept of a bake sale? Kids at school, nursery, brownies, guides or any random club make cakes (often at home and bring them in) and sell them for charity. Or the Macmillan coffee mornings in workplaces?

I guarantee you not one of those people joining in got a food hygiene certificate before baking some cupcakes to donate.

Yes, this!

Good old cake sale economics, where the ingredients, the energy and the usually female time are magically free.

OK, maybe leave out the message on female labour being undervalued.
Unless she's closer to 6, in which case, hammer it home.

I think it sounds like a great idea, although I must confess I don't think I would buy a cake made by a five year old for hygiene reasons.

Ha! Yes. Cake sale economics are wonderfully nonsensical.
Your child has a bake sale at school, so you spend 3hours of your time, 7€ of ingredients plus some electricity and perhaps petrol to get to the supermarket making a cake that is cut into 10 pieces and sold for 1€ each to the same families who also spent about 10€ and 3 hours getting a cake to the event. It would be more efficient to just ask for 10€ and we wouldn’t all be down 3 hours or unpaid labour.
Fine for creating community spirit. Nonsense in terms of making money.

That sounds like a great!

OP could stipulate that the cost of materials would have to be deducted.

she’ll need to calculate the cost, how much she’ll sell a slice / cupcake for etc. That might be a valuable lesson.

I agree with this.

Why not let her help make a cake - and that will have to include stopping her doing all the fun bits, like dipping finger in for a taste - and then take a slice round (or an individual small cake) to a neighbour as a gift.

We used to do this during the summer holidays, we'd go scrumping and pick blackberries and raspberries (and all the damsons of one of the parents trees, they were t happy!), bag them up and sell them for sweet money.

Unless she’s exceptionally advanced at maths, she’s unlikely to be able to calculate that at 5year old. If somehow it makes the game more fun to have real money, OP could empty the 1p coins from her purse and pass them out to the kids to use to buy the cakes. Probably cheaper that buying play money to be honest.

You didn't mention her age in the opening post so I started off thinking if she's teenage and trying to raise money for something this is a great idea and very entrepreneurial.

Then I saw the update that's she's only 5! No... she's too young to understand the concept of the financial transaction involved. Rather than encourage a sale and donate to charity, why not do the baking together and give the cakes as a little gift to the neighbours instead. She still gets to do the baking that she enjoys, she still gets to do something charitable and see the joy, but you spare her the awkwardness of what if she doesn't sell many.

I have maybe 3p in coppers. It's not that common to carry cash about these days.

If she's 5 I wouldn't tbh.

Agree its a lovely idea but if anything goes wrong and you haven't considered these then there are potentially some very bad outcomes.

Its a shame but that's the world these days.

Maybe do the stall the next time relatives are visiting.

You don't need insurance for a one off charity event such as this. Yes, a list of ingredients would be a good idea so people can check for allergens. Flapjacks can easily be made gluten and dairy free, but she shouldn't restrict herself. She could make lemonade as well - easy to make up a batch of syrup and add ice and water.

I somehow missed that OP’s DD is 5 😅

Suggesting that she uses it as a way to raise money for charity is still a great idea imo.
My cousins and I used to do that with flowers from our gardens when we were little. It was so much fun!

Encouraging children to donate a certain percentage of their money seems fairly standard to me, so why not do it with the cake sale as well?

Are you for real 😂

oh come on!! It is a childs bake sale!! retired chef here. Very aware of the "rules" Yes sometimes children lick the batter spoon and put their fingers in things. When I lived in Canada, all summer there was garage sales (like a boot sale but in their driveways or garages) every weekend. If I saw a child selling something, I would buy it! I would also normally bin it after, but once in a while I could not resist and ate it. Still alive.

If a child did this on my street, I'd probably buy one to show support , but it would go in the bin at home.

I hope some of the responses here are a joke, I just imagine these sweet little children wanting to do something like this, but you lot bogging down their attempt with red tape and health inspections 😂.

My god, I remember once when we were kids, we found a load of abandoned crap dumped in the communal bin chutes, using it we built a ‘shop’ on the green selling orange squash for 10p a cup, some council workers took pity on us and bought some, it’s only now I’m worrying about where we got the plastic cups from, hopefully someone’s mum! 😂

You may send some auditors to track us down and make sure we declared the tax on the 30p we made in 1991! 😂

I didn’t expect this post to get so much attention but loving the responses 😂
our eggs are stored in the fridge fyi, it is supposed to be very hot this week though so we are going to give it a go for her towards the end of the week. Of course as she is only 5 (but nearly 6 😅) we will be supervising her and tbh I will end up making cupcakes and she will decorate them. She is mostly excited about the interaction of having a little set up and neighbours coming along to buy one. Shes even been drawing up her little posters.
we have spoken about what we will do with any profited funds she makes and if there’s at least £10 we will be donating to a children’s hospital her brother is under but also she can have a couple pounds to buy herself some tat like slime! I do think it will be a good learning experience, I just hope the neighbourhood aren’t debby downers. I’ll keep everyone posted

Why did you say that it needed to be for charity? What was wrong with her doing it for a bit of extra money for herself?

I would invite friends and family for a tea and cake party. It's great fun.

We often bake and bring to church for refresments after the service. Everyone is invited to. But of course it works best as a churchgoing family.

Yay, the wet blanket award in the first 10 posts!!! Congratulations!

🏅

My little girl did this, I was not keen, we only got pity sales, I saw some neighbours walk a different way round so as not to pass us, half way through her friends came by and fingered all the cakes without buying and then my daughter ran off with them to play and did not come back, leaving me sat like a weirdo with the melting ‘cakes’.

I can't imagine a small child doing a bake sale requires the necessary paperwork or insurance any more than the parents baking for a school fete or sports day do.

Good god, some of the responses on here!

She's 5 y/o having a little bake sale for fun... she's not going on Dragon's Den! Jesus wept!

OP I think it's a lovely idea.