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

Anything that has sweets on will be a sure hit!

Have one star-turn cake, and do that every time

Tray bakes are quick to make, east transport and always popular.

Decorate with sweets or sparkles to ensure a quick sale.
Themed cakes can be popular.

Practice your chosen recipe beforehand so you know it tastes good. I go for mini butterfly cakes everytime, dressed with a strawberry or vanilla buttercream and sparkly or chocolate sprinkles (trying to appeal to girls and boys here!). There's also less mess if the cake is small and can be eaten in one or two bites!

Much better to stick to individual cakes & biscuits as it can be a nightmare to portion out a large cake for sale

When my daughter had cake sales at school we always decorated cakes with chocolate buttons, jelly tots, haribos, hundreds and thousands. Children are attracted to sweetie cakes and ours always were sold out straight away. Maybe not healthy for children but cake sales don't happen every day and a little bit of sugar wont hurt! I think if you make the cakes eye catching then you are on to a winner!

Add some edible glitter to them - seems to make them popular!

My top tips are:

Bake simple cakes. Those always go down well.
Plan well ahead.
Get the kids involved in cake decoration or helping out.

Keep it simple but with chocolate and sweets everywhere (muffins, chocolate Krispies...doesn't matter what!)

Make quick colourful cakes e.g Chocolate rice crispie cakes with marshmallow bits, fairy cakes with colourful icing and sprinkle or change the fairy cakes into butterfly cakes using butter cream, cut tops off and cutting the top in half to make wings. Another easy recipe is the basic gingerbread. this again is another easy thing to make and you can use shape cutters to makes any object and then decorate afterwards with coloured icing.

Make your cakes fairly basic, but cover them in as much colour as possible - bright icing, chocolates, sweets hundreds and thousands - really pile them on!
Kids love it and don't underestimate the scope of pester power! :)

I don't/cannot cook well, so I pass the responsibility onto my Mum or if need be get a store bought one. I wish I could do it though...

Make cupcakes and decorate them in different ways e.g. cover some in chocolate, some in white icing, some in pink icing. Add chocolate buttons or sweets to the top - or if you are good at piping pipe on designs or words appropriate to the school.

I like to make cookies rather than cakes & I use my own original recipes, Chocolate orange cookies & Lemon cream white chocolate melts

This year I plan on making basic fairy cakes, and decorating them with "Frozen" cake toppers from eBay. The least effort for the happiest 4 year old girls.

Buy plain supermarket fairy cakes and icing and decorate according to the season.

Rocky road is my usual contribution - very easy and cheap to make.

Rice crispy cakes oddly don't sell well at our cake sales.

Simple fairy cakes with simple icing win at ours. Fancy cupcakes draw people in, but aren't favoured by the kids (weirdos)

And if you do a big cake, cut it up at home please. Chopping up a lovely big cake with a plastic knife is horrible.

chocolate cakes of all varieties from butterfly to cup cakes to iced top fairy cakes with motifs kids and adults alike love chocolate cakes

Don't go to a huge effort like I did with lovely piped buttercream etc.

They sell for very little and if I'd kept it simple could have made double!

I second to sparkly, colourful ones sell first

Buns with nice icing can't bear to call them fucking cupcakes
And what's the difference between a fairy cake and a cupcake? Is a fairy cake smaller?

Sometimes send in a loaf of bread, warm, fresh out of the bread machine. Funnily enough, it always sells, maybe to people on diets?

Sweets and icing, the more the better in the brightest colours you can find. Also I would definitely say invest in a piping kit. One time I just dollops icing on top and people weren't impressed, but the next time I actually piped a swirl on top they got snapped up, or it could have been the food colouring in the icing, who knows.