To not volunteer for the PTA cake stall again this term, seeing as how they'll no longer accept shop-bought products?

[LittleBella]

When I took a whole load of shop-bought little fairy cakes, doughnuts and muffins in from Morrisons today, the school secretary said: "oh we can't accept those, we can only accept home-baked stuff now. It's the law".

Seeing as how this sort of cake has been the norm on the cake stall for the last 5 years (it's been about half and half home baked and shop bought), either the govt must have sneaked in a new law over the summer while the rest of parliament was in recess, or the school are hardened law-breakers. The stall is on Fridays, so baking would have to happen on Thursdays and that is football and dancing day, so no chance.

Am I supposed to distress the farking things a la I don't know how she does it?

Me too Blu, ha ha ha

It's not about raising money because it doesn't make much, so what IS is about?

MAking sure parents are too busy to notice the head's on crack and half the teachers are depressed?

Well my hands are as guilty of being idle as anyone else's (she says hurriedly)!

I love baking and being able to makes loads of fanciable things without actually having to eat them, was quite fun

This thread makes me want to run out to Sainsburys and buy the biggest most HFCS,aspartame,e-numbers laden cake I can find,and scoff it in one sitting instead of making the muffins and Victoria sponge that I'd planned.

I am interested in the subtext of PTAS and cake stalls though. It aint just about the cakes imo!

It makes the PTA visible. Volunteers have come forward as a result of them.

Ours are always held on a Friday after school

BIZARRE!

You would have expected it to be the opposite way round. Home made could have anything in or have been baked with grubby hands. How silly.

True Mercy

It is about competition IMO.

Now we are getting too old to win the mothers' races - we show off our prowess by baking huge trays of intricate cakes.

It starts off as a tray of 12 fairy cakes, butter icing and a dust of icing sugar. It ends up as a tray of 4 dozen fairy cakes, with lace wings, touched with gold leaf, held together with patissier cream over delicately scented vanilla buns. By the end it was almost criminal to eat the bloody things! And of course there were so many you could get a bag of 10 for 20p

This seems like a good place to post this cake wrecks v funny imo.

I always make a rice crispie, chocolate ,marshmallow and digestive biscuit fridge bake. It's so simple.

I never bake cakes for school, life's too short etc. Actually I did, once, and it didn't work (some cakes don't rise properly in an aga). No one bought it

What dd and I have done in the past is to buy plain cakes and home decorate them, or she makes little children's ones from packets eg. M & S fairy cakes to make.

the cake sales at our school raise about £500 quid a go so very worth it from the school's pov. the kids love them. shop bought cakes welcome (although they are put out last ). pta events are about building the school community as much as raising money imho. at least they are at the dc's school.

from the health and safety perspective, shop bought cakes are a much safer proposition as the premises are regulated, as is the labelling.

i think it is just part of the wohm's perpetual guilt - we could just let it go and not worry! i speak as someone who has been up until midnight making cakes for the sales!

The dog cake is horrible!

The wedding one is so funny (poor woman). Looks like the sort of cake I would make tbh

the dc's school doesn't have competition of that kind among the parents, thank goodness!

"I am interested in the subtext of PTAS and cake stalls though. It aint just about the cakes imo! "

Quote www

Its about power and control

was probably because they were from Morrisons

at our school the sales are about extracting money from the parents and giving the kids a bit of break from routine and a treat! not necessarily in that order

Yes I'm sure Waitrose pink and white iced cupcakes in the silver box would have been ok

Yes but BK it's pretty much all money from home isn't it? So parents make cakes, parents buy cakes, pta gets money. Wouldn't it be easier to cut out the middle man and just give cash directly to the school?

That's what you believe bk

I never see all this undercurrent at our school (pta and power freaks) but maybe it's because it's a v large school so it's more diluted

lol cam, my first thought

i think parents should feel perfectly free not to bake if they don't want to or don't have time. the dc's school also has two schemes whereby pta refuseniks [tongue-in-cheek emoticon ] can donate money if they wish.

honestly, the pta at the dc's school is not full of power crazed wannabe alpha mums. i realise that all ptas are not the same though!

LOL at the idea that the "home made" cakes are nicer. They are mostly those horrid little Greens packets where you add an egg and then a picture of a Bratz or Disney Princess or Batman or something no top. Not even bona fide cakes in my book. I may not do it for the PTA stall, but if I bake a cake, I bake a bloody cake, not one of those horrible mixes. They taste *worse" than Mr Kipling imo.

I did think of shop buying and then distressing and re-packing in tupperware, but I immediately dismissed the idea as not quite politically right on. Why should I pretend I've baked when I haven't? And I don't care how many times you all tell me it only takes 15 minutes, that's a) not true for me and b) not how I want to spend any minutes of my time on a Thursday PM anyway. My attitude is becoming more hardline now.