need to make lots of cakes for pta - help!

[LaBelleDameSansPatience]

I need to make lots of cakes for a pta cake sale next friday. I will only have time on Sunday afternoon, so I will have to freeze the cakes and decorate them on Thursday evening. The most popular, I think, will be little cup cakes and other individual cakes which children can buy. Have you got any ideas for easy cakes which will freeze well and be popular? Also, have you got any tips for really easy, fast, fantastically impressive decorations? Please??

Bog standard sponge fairy cakes will freeze well and can be easily decorated.

Personal experience has taught me not to waste time with anything fancy and the more smarties/jelly diamonds/sprinkles etc you put on top the quicker they seem to go!

echo no fancy decorations/gallons of butter icing.

traditional all the way here.

the other thing I do for the PTFA if I'm in a hurry is whizz up a couple of chocolate swiss rolls and make cakes pops...don't coat in melted chocolate though as it takes ages to set nicely.

Butter icing and hundreds and thousands - go like hot errr cakes.

cakes pops?????

I make truffles which can be frozen, 20 digestive biscuits crushed up, 9 spoons of hot chocolate or cocoa powder, 5 spoonfuls of coconut add into a bowl and then add a tin of condensed milk and mix well them make into balls and roll in powder or coconut or chocolate sprinkles.

Scones freeze well along with fruit loaves

I make cake pops for every PTA event and they are the first thing to sell out. They sell them for 50p a pop.

:) no you don't make the swiss rolls you BUY them from the co-op innit....

Large tray bakes, frozen. Then large quantity of glace or buttercream to spread on defrosted cakes. Sprinkle liberally with hundreds and thousands, smarties, mini marshmallows etc Then cut into squares.
Rice crispie cakes are always quick or flapjack?

I use this basic biscuit recipe

4oz sugar
4oz butter
1 egg
8oz flour
1 tsp vanilla flavour

Then add anything upi want too, smarties, choc chips, white chocolate, dried fruit etc. I have bashed up crunchies in the past as they were on offer. Either roll balls of the dough in your hand and squash onto baking tray or alternatively roll out as a log and cut slices (this tends to make them more uniform).

Bake at 180 for @15 mins, but depends on the size of your biscuit.

No idea if it will freeze (and maybe an idea to freeze as dough?) but they should keep well in an airtight tin.

The more lurid the colour of icing and sprinkles the quicker they will sell in my experience!

I often feel it would be much better to give the school a tenner rather than going to the bother of making good quality food to be sold for a few pennies.

I made American Style cookies for the cake sale today.

Can't you just send out a letter and ask parents to send cakes into school?

i tend make freezer cookies
basically you make dough and freeze in a sausage shape then cut and cook from frozen
got me out of many a tight squeeze!

fairy cakes.color fondant icing red.roll and cut small circles.place in centre white iced cake,add clown eyes and a mouth

You can freeze fairy cakes complete with butter icing- just defrost and decorate.

I know this because I have done it myself, it works a treat :)

A whole new world is opening up ....

Lynette, we can't ask the parents because this is the first sale and the HT doesn't want the parents bothered at the moment, since she feels they are asked for so much. And we need to make some money...

Freezer cookies sounds like a very good idea!

Would the fairy cakes with butter icing be like this: ?125g butter
?125g caster sugar
?1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
?2 large eggs
?125g self-raising flour, sifted
?2 tablespoons milk
All mixed in the food processor and baked for 10-15 mins?

I do like the idea of truffles and cake pops!

The basic biscuit recipe above seems to have more flour ... would it work in little paper cases?

I only ever use one sponge cake mixture which I use for all my cakes (including my award winningahem coffee and walnut sponge :) )

6oz of sugar, stork, self raising flour.
3 large eggs

• flavouring - good quality vanilla/strong instant coffee/ cocoa powder mix - depending on what kind of sponge.

butter/fat/flavouring get mixed first. Then Add eggs and flour then in bun cases for 10/15 minutes. Oven should be no more than !80 but sould be pre heated.

For some reason Stork works really well for me and makes light and fluffy cakes everytime.

Not sure what the milk would be for in the recipe above....

Off to buy ingredients now. Maybe milk in case eggs aren't large enough?

Go antipodean and make lamingtons. Swiss roll (bought or home made) cut into squares, rolled in runny chocolate icing or semi-set raspberry jelly and then rolled in coconut. Wait until coating has dried and then slice them half-way through, fill with whipped cream. They freeze well, cream and all.

freezer cookies

6oz caster sugar
4oz lite brown sugar
8oz butter,softened at room temp
2 large eggs,beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
1lb plain flour
1 level tsp baking powder
1/2 level tsp bicarbonate of soda
approx 2floz milk

beat butter and sugars together til pale and fluffy
beat in the eggs and vanilla
sift flour,soda and powder and mix in adding milk to make a soft dough
shape into 2 sausage logs approx 12" long and wrap in foil
chill for 2hours til firm or freeze

to cook preheat oven 200oc/400of/gas 6
unwrap and using a serrated edge knife slice 1/4" thick and lay on a greased tray with room to spread a little between
press smarties/m+ms/chopped fudge and chopped marshmallows/nuts/raisins,choc chips,sugar sprinkles etc onto each one and bake
6-8mins if from fridge.rest for 4 mins then move to a rack to cool

Have cooked for the last two hours with two five-year olds eating the ingredients helping. Have tried two of your recipes and definitely want to try lamingtons, cake pops, etc when I have a chance to get to the shops for ingredients. Have put some freezer cookie dough in the freezer to bake on Thursday. Am rather agreeing with the idea of just giving the school £10 - although I am hoping that if the first sale goes well, I can then leave it to others to do the work in future.

Cake pops with 2 five year olds, you would be a much braver lady than I.

So, results of the cooking: my cake cases were too small, so silly little (albeit delicious) fairy cakes. Freezer cookies - cut off a couple of slices of frozne dough just to try while I was baking some bread rolls. Think my roll was of too small a diameter. Cut a piece about 1 cm thick. It started to cook before it had melted and I had to squash them half way through with a potato masher to make them biscuit shaped not blob shaped. Then pushed in chocolate chips again half way through, but when they were cool the choc chips didn't look good. Tasted really good, but they will sell on looks not taste. Maybe I should sneak off to Tesco and just present artistically on a plate.

I am a rubbish cake maker - it is doomed to failure.

On the other hand, I made sourdough rolls, having made up the recipe and they are great. But sadly no good for a PTA cake sale.

Chocolate chip cookies easy and nice - would sell well if you made big ones. Flapjack with melted chocolate on top ditto. Tiffin v easy and lovely too.

Or just set up a pretentious baking stall with sourdough rolls, brioche, french macaroons etc? Wouldn't sell anything but would definitely give you the rights to look down your nose at people selling fairy cakes with jelly tots on top

I think you need to focus on tray bakes - individual cakes are too labour intensive. Mary Berry is worth googling for. Good luck, I think you're amazing doing this, I hate cake sales as my lovely cakes get sold for less than the cost of the ingredient, nevermind my effort....but I particpate because it is expected. I think I need to become more assertive.