What are your top tips for the school cake sale? Tell Flora for the chance to win a £200 John Lewis voucher. NOW CLOSED

[AngelieMumsnet]

With school starting up again and cake sales coming up, Flora would love to hear about Mumsnetters' tips for the school cake sale.

Here's what Flora have to say: “We know that the school cake sale can sometimes be a battleground but Flora is here to offer a helping hand. Baking with Flora Buttery couldn’t be simpler- just 5 ingredients and 15 minutes is all it takes. All it takes is a bowl and spoon! You can even get the kids to help for easy peasy baking fun and tasty sell out cakes every time!”

So, what are your top tips for the school cake sale? Do you have any simple fail-safe cake recipes which you know will sell well? Do you like to bake with your DCs? Perhaps you prefer to buy cakes? Are there any cake sale favourites which have surprised you?

Do you have any tips for navigating cake stand politics? What are the pricing policies in place at your DCs' school? What tips do you have for getting as many parents involved as possible?

Whatever your top tips are, Flora would love to hear about it.

Everyone who posts on this thread will be entered into a prize draw where one winner will receive a £200 John Lewis voucher.

Please note your comments may be included on Flora's social media channels, and possibly elsewhere, so please only post if you're comfortable with this.

Thanks and good luck,
MNHQ

Put in the minimal amount of effort. Nobody is going to thank you for your beautiful, loving crafted cakes. Crispy cakes are perfect or simply fairy cakes with garish toppings. Or giant cookies with smarties in.
Tray bakes are too messy to cut and serve.
If you make an interesting cake (gluten-free, special flavours etc.) then the people selling them won't remember what the USP is and any labels will be lost/detached. Make sure the cakes visually say everything people need to know about how they are going to taste.

P.S. Don't be tempted to buy any of your cakes which are leftover, just because they look lonely .

gooey chocolate brownies

easy, quick to make, very low oven needed is all you need. they look boring but taste divine

Conventional flavours. Pineapple brownies or kiwi pies don't sell.

Properly EF/DF/GF etc cakes are always appreciated by parents who cannot normally buy anything at cake sales, but only make them if you really know how to avoid contamination. Wrap the cake in clingfilm, label very clearly, and then wrap in clingfilm again to make sure that the label is not lost.

Best recipe is a 125 one. 125g flora, same of self raising flour and caster sugar. 2 eggs, tsp baking powder and get dc to mix!

Bung in the oven, decorate when cool. Couldn't be easier!

The other thing I have made that's been a hit is a no bake mint tray.

You melt flora, pour over crushed digestives and push this into the bottom if a time. Whip butter, icing sugar and free food colouring tospgether. Spread onto the biscuit base. Melt chocolate and smother in the top. Each layer needs 20 mins in the fridge before the next layer is added. It's just like mint aero!

I LOVE the school bake sales. The sharp elbows at the table, parents trying to control a tsunami of children armed with 20 p, all for a smashed up fairy cake covered in glitter and smarties. Brilliant!

Yeah, don't make lavender cakes

Pack of rich tea biscuits, packet of marshmallows.
Arrange a layer of whole rich tea biscuits (spread with jam if you like) and put a marshmallow on each one.
Warm in the oven until the marshmallows swell up, then take out and use the rest of the biscuits to squash the marshmallow down.
Voila! Wagon wheels, takes about 10 minutes and the kids love them

Animal fairy cakes. These always look fab and sell well. Bake little sponge cakes. Divide them into three groups. Make some butter cream and cover one group of cakes. Divide the rest of the butter cream into two. Put in pink colouring in one and yellow in the other. Cover the other two batches of cakes. One the white ones use chocolate drops for eyes, jelly beans forvhorns and a chocolate button fir a nose to make a cow. On the pink one make a pig with a white chocolate buttons cut in half for ears, one for a nose chocolate drops for eyes. On the yellow ones make a chick wit drops for eyes, a jelly beans crest and a jelly bean cut in half for a beak. I quite like doing it!

125 recipe wouldn't go far in this house! I'd do a minimum 4 egg mix, to make a decent tray-full for the bake sale and some for us.

I make chocolate fudge brownies because I'm not so good at decorating and they have sold well every time.

I make double so we can keep some for ourselves!

Have made biscuits in the past as not everyone likes cakes. It surprised me that they sold out but I suppose kids and adults love gingerbread men.

I used to help out and we priced things from 20p - £1

Here's what I do for bake sales:

Buy a bunch of fairy cakes
Put cakes in a big food saver tub. Give a little shake.

There. Home made (looking) cakes. Cost: £2 and intact sanity.

Mini fairy cakes! Easy to make, and easy for letting the kids decorate... with as many sweets as they can possibly balance on top!

And as an added bonus, once they're decorated, noone will be able to tell whether they're underdone/ overdone, risen too much or not enough...

I LOVE BAKING, and I love trying out new recipes, and techniques.

But not for a bake sale at school. It's just not worth it in terms of time or money. I am firmly in the camp of: make a simple batch of fairy cakes (using marge not butter as it's cheaper and quicker and fine for bake sale), and decorate with simple icing sugar and water icing, then stick a few sweets on top.

Anything more and the heartache as your special creations sell for 10p is too unbearable.

On the provisio that most of the cakes will be bought by the kids then...keep it simple, add colourful icing and hundreds and thousands by the bucket load (or jelly tots!).

Top tips-

1. Variety- yes, you can make a simple spongue mixture but seperate it and then add little bits so you can make a variety of cakes without much fuss. I love caramel, whilst my partner loves coconut (I hate it)...do them both!

1. Let the kids get involved! I normally make the mixture and let my daughter do some cakes and I do some. It gets her involved and also gives a personal touch from my daughter. If they don't want personal..they can have one of my cakes :)

1. If it all goes wrong do a simple crispy cake!. My favourite is mars bar cake-

Melted mars bars and rice crispies. Put it in a tray after being mixed together, let it set and then cut it into chunks. Delicious and easy :)

We always used to buy my Mums because we always thought they were the best. (Victoria sponge)

Meringue toadstools are lovely.

Never send your child with a bought cake - it is the height of lazy.

Add veggies where possible grated courgette in chocolate cake and carrot cake - they still look tempting and are delicious.

If I don't have time to bake, I buy own brand plain fairy cakes and decorate.

My most successful ones were sports themed, with iced green "grass" sticking up with an icing rugby balls and footballs. Some of the girls even chose them over my sparkly princess tiara and castle cakes.

From what I have witnessed, pricing seems to be done based on size and amount of decoration!

Cake toppers and butter icing hide a multitude of sins!

If all else fails, cornflake crispy cakes with mini eggs, yum.

Always dread these - children end up by the yuckiest sweetest things and only eat the icing. I try to make high-minded stuff, like wholemeal spinach muffins, and no one buys it - boo hoo. So, it is 50p for each child to buy a fairy cake lathered with blue and pink icing and teeth cracking baubles. One a term.

My top tip would be to price well. 1.00 for gorgeous, handmade, I-should-have-a-cake-shop fairy cakes, 50p for a slice of tray bake or the less lovely cakes, 20p for bought mini rolls etc.

My top tip would be to price well. 1.00 for gorgeous, handmade, I-should-have-a-cake-shop fairy cakes, 50p for a slice of tray bake or the less lovely cakes, 20p for bought mini rolls etc.

Small cakes with sweets on always go down really well with the kids. You cannot have too many cakes!

Yoghurt pot cake.

The easiest cake in the world, and a lump of chocolate squidge.

Decorate with melted chocolate and retro chocolate buttons.

Charge £1.25

Flapjack. Always improved by the addition of chocolate on top - drizzled or spread.

I favour Fairy Cake mix with sultanas and chocolate chips stirred in to make them juicy. When baked, Cover with white fondant icing and a ton of glitter sugar! And send it in an old icecream tub so it doesn't need returning...