Have stupidly offered to make cakes for school Christmas fair....impressive but staightforward cake recipes needed

[katierocket]

come on, make me look good.

can't go wrong with nigella's cupcakes, stick smarties in the icing

Well, I came to offer Nigella's fairy cakes recipe but bp had already administered it...

Glad no one noticed my terrible muddle, this is Nigella's recipe, the other one seems to have been posted by someone else entirely

thank you, I am saved.

I too have been stitched up with this task (what was I saying about parallel lives!!) I am making Nigella's banana and chocolate loaf, a couple of lemon madeira cakes and a couple of trays of brownies... all dead easy and recipes available if you need them...

You could try home made mince pies, Mary Berry's carrot cake, or homemade biscuits - cut out in festive shapes which are always popular with kids. You could then decorate them with icing (get tubes which you can squeeze out), and silver balls or or chocolate strands or 100's and 1000's to decorate. The good thing with this is that you can get your kids to help out with the decorating

Dorset Apple Cake - it's the easiest recipe in the universe but it's really, really scrummy.

8oz self raising flour
pinch of salt
4oz butter or margarine
2oz raisins
2 eating apples, peeled, cored and roughly chopped
3 oz granulated sugar
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons milk

Sift the flour and salt, rub in the butter until it resembles breadcrumbs

Stir in the raisins, apples and sugar

Add the egg and milk, mix with a knife. The dough will be soft.

Spoon the mixture into a greased 8" sandwich tin

Bake at 180C for about 50 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. You may need to cover the cake with tin foil if it cooks too quickly on the outside.

Cool in the tin. When you turn it out, sprinkle with extra sugar.

katierocket, after some trial and error I have found that the thing that sells best is a plain victoria sandwich (I do 225 g of SR flour, marg and caster sugar plus 4 large eggs, but I have 8" pans, for 7" pans use 2 or 3 eggs and 150 g of everything else).
I fill it with buttercream and jam and it will always sell right off the stall. People seem to like something plain. A lot easier than some of the fancy stuff I have done in the past!
BTW if making brownies (yummy!) make sure they are sold for enough money. I have seen them sold alongside simple cupcakes all for 20p which is a bit cheap for imho brownies, when you consider the ingerdients.

Crispie Squares (DEAD EASY! Kids love 'em!)

Melt 4oz butter, 4oz caramel toffees, 4oz white marshmallows in a saucepan then add 6oz rice krispies. Mix well then squash into a tray, leave to harden then cut into squares. Or put into individual cake cases.

Great cake sale standby!

agree about the viccy sponge

they always sell really well and people love a good one

sooooooooooooo easy nigellas recipe in the front of how to eat is very good if you have that

Chocolate Tiffin is easy peasy and goes down well.

As a regular on the cake stall I find that anything chocolately goes down well and it is best to avoid anything containing nuts. At our last event, the apple cake was very popular. Also, when providing cakes it is helpful to label what they are. A surprinsing number of donations don't and it makes it very difficult to sell

Very easy chocolate cake and tastes delicious...
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 cup boiling water
6oz btter
1 1/2 cups castor sugar
1 tablespn vanilla
3 eggs
2 cups sr flour
1/4 tsp carb soda
3/4 cup milk
raspberry jam
blend cocoa with boiling water. cool. cream btter and sugar, add vanilla and beaten eggs. Add cocoa mixture. sift flour, salt and carb soda and add to creamed mixt - alternate with milk.
Bake in moderate oven (about 180) 30-35 mins (I have to leave it in much longer - until knife comes clean and/or cake starts to leave the edge of the tin). Leave stand in tin a few mins then turn out.
beat cream until stiff - spread in the middle and on top with the raspberry jam. Or you can use chocolate icing...

eeek, I'm actually a bit scared now. Some of these look yum. Would choc crispy cakes with marshmallows on top but a cop out?

go to supermarket, buy some that look ok, take out of wrappers and put in a cake tin!

I did that for our church fair and they all sold first making more money quicker!

wwb, made your Dorset Apple cake for our bazaar today. It had a sort of scone like texture but was moist. Was really easy and dd could "help" me. It certainly wasn't among those left with half an hour to go !!