My Kate Reddy moment

My daughter's first bake sale is happening today, which means naturally I only remembered around 8:30 last night that I had to bake cupcakes to take to school. I actually love to bake from scratch but last night I was seduced by the Sainsbury's Victoria sponge mix in the cupboard. I pulled out a recipe from my mother of a frosting made from margarine, frozen raspberries and an entire box of icing sugar.

The cupcakes came out brilliantly - moist on the inside, browned on top (I tasted one just to make sure it was cooked through, for scientific reasons). But the mix only made 6 cupcakes. So I had to break into a Barbie cake mix my daughter had. Then the frosting had gone hard and had to be reheated.

All this for a bunch of kids who would probably be satisfied with gently distressed store-bought cakes as described in Allison Pearson's I Don't Know How She Does It.

So 'fess up. How do you make goodies for school? Straight out of the box or milled from wheat, with love?

Comments

[Mindo]

Supermother - I understand that you don't think that women should bake or iron but that its perfectly ok to pay someone else to do that for you? Do you employ only men as your domestic servants?

[LM]

Oh, well, we haven't got to bake sales yet as my daughter's still a bit young for those. I was perfectly happy to provide mini-cupcakes for her class on her birthday, but that's a different class of activity. As far as fund-raising is concerned, round our way, you're far more likely to see a high-end charity auction than a bake sale, even at the state schools (it's all those AMs putting their professional skills to use in the schools).

[Sho]

Oh and Jane2 - it's not armies you should be against. It's the politicians who use them badly.

I've often thoght that the Army should just sit out the next flood/ambulance strike/firefighter strike/whatever and let people cope without them.

[Sho]

*wiping tears of laughter from my eyes*

I lead a little bit of the army, baked (and still do occasionally) and iron because i'm sort of hyperactive and can't just watch TV.

I also do gardening, woodworking and art with my daughters along with sewing and windowcleaning. (make things fun and children will do it willingly)

Often for my daughter's school I'll donate coffee or money, but I like to make the cake and it's a good reason not to have to flog myself round the gym: I get to bake, the house smells great, the school gets something and I've joined in and made my daughter happy.

Result all round.

Plus my girls can bake, make things out of wood, sew, shop, do gardening...
they might marry a rich guy, get a highly paid job or whatever and not need those skills. On the other hand maybe not. At least I'm fairly sure they will be self-sufficient and able to pass these skills to their offspring (of whatever gender)

and now... I'll use my lunchbreak to buy the ingredients to make frosting for the cake I remembered I needed to bake at the last minute last night.

Organised, moi?

[mumoftwo]

I partly agree with SM, life is too short to bake a cake if you don't like baking cakes, and have other things to do. I love baking at home with my children once in a while, but I don't enjoy being obliged to perform cake-making to raise money (I'd just rather give the money) and prefer our contribution to be sitting on the committee (which we do). It is quite funny how the raising money activities tend to be 'traditional' mother activities such as baking cakes, filling jars (full of what I think every time) and totally exclude fathers or mothers who aren't into or don't have time for such things. It echoes the 1950's housewife model, where the contribution of women was as a supporter, the ones who do the flowers, bake the cakes, but aren't the vicar, or the headteacher, or the City professional themselves. I'm not saying ban the cakes, just that other forms of fundraising might draw in other types of parents (although someone needs to eat the cakes I suppose!)

Debbie: good luck with your business, I imagine you will be very very popular for all the reasons I've outlined above!

[Jane2]

I laughed at Supermother's post. Dear SM, you always play the same tune! There are subtleties to life, not everything's black or white.

But I WAS disturbed by your comment that women should be leading armies. NO, NO, NO! We should be leading committees against armies.

As to your remarks about ironing, if you have time, do read my post on ironing, dated Sept 12th on
www.ableblog-sensibilia.blogspot.com
(my blog).

I've been a mother for the same length of time as you, and have made cakes for the PTA, but only once or twice. I found it a better use of my time to be the Chair of the PTA and a school governor. I think this is probably the argument you are making.

[LM]

Sho, both sound good! Thank you.

Debbie - I'd actually say life is too short NOT to bake a cake with a child, and I'd rather live by enjoyment than by feminist principles (think you'd agree with that).

[Debbie]

Well I think life is never to short to bake a cake - but then I would as I am becoming a professional baker and cake maker extraordinaire. My business starts up next week fingers crossed! I just got an order to bake a cake for a Mum to take to school - so that's one way to go about it!

Its just great baking with your kids and teaches them heaps. There is actually a huge amount of science to learn when you become a baker - so it can be educational as well.

Here's a tip for great sponge cakes. whisk the sugar and butter for at least 5 minutes and preferably 8 minutes until it is almost white. Then add eggs at room temperature ( very important) one at a time and whisk for at least a couple of minutes between each one. Then fold in flour very carefully and bake. You are guaranteed a great sponge cake!

[supermother]

I am sure over 24 years we have done lots of cooking with the children but I don't remember ever making anything for school. Life is is too short to do a lot of this stuff.

If women who are too busy analyse what they do and look at which tasks are necessary and which a waste of time and then pick out those they have to do and leave the others they'd be a bit more relaxed about life. I have probably ironed an item about 4 times in 24 years as a mother for example. You pick what's important and do it and try not just to follow the herd.

Also don't we have a political and moral duty anyway as alpha women to concentrate on things like leading armies and leading the country and by sweating the small stuff we actually damage our children, particularly our daughters' career prospects long term and become and entrench women as domestic servants? Perhaps even as a matter of principle rather than laziness eschew this stuff and insist the children's father does it or it's not done at all at least for say 2000 years until women have righted the wrongs done to them by 2000 years of sexism. After 2000 years I'll let you get back to stuffing olives and the like.

[Sho]

Organised? Hmmm not sure about that. Ex-military married to a chef just about sums it up.
:-D

If you like I can dig out one or two recipes? Cinnamon Stars are particularly yummy, as are the Spekulatius (butter biscuits with spices in)

[LM]

Sho, you are far more organised than me! I usually make the mince pies on Christmas Eve & the pudding a couple of days before, if I'm lucky (last year, I didn't get to the cake).

Do you have any good recipes for those delicious German spice cookies/cakes they have at Christmas?

[Sho]

It's stir-it-in-Sunday soon - we'll be making our Christmas Pudding, Christmas Cake and getting the mincemeat ingredients ready. After that we have to break out the Christmas Biscuit recipes and get cracking (I can't be a proper Hausfrau and Mother here without doing that)

To be honest, SMs comments about what she does and doesn't do (and what she does and doesn't delegate to her nanny) make me wonder why she had children sometimes. But then we're all different.

There are more important things to do than bake cakes - unless your children really really want to bake a cake with you.

[LM]

Spot on, CK - and it teaches chemistry and maths skills too. I think that SM just never learned how to bake and didn't want to admit it to her children so she's sadly spent 24 years hiding the fact behind her brilliant, top-notch legal career. Frankly, on a wet autumn Sunday afternoon, I can't think of many more pleasant things to do with a small child than messing around in the kitchen. And the smell of making the Christmas cake & mince pies really helps kick off the holiday season in our house.

Nicky - what you should have said was "of course, and did you remember that you're bringing the chocolate fudge cake with you?"

[Nicky]

I find cooking with recipes a bit stressful as that's not how I like to cook, so it takes me ages, and therefore only happens occasionally. Son likes it though.

It's his birthday on Monday and I was gearing up for making a choc fudge cake... until my mum rang up this evening, saying "Are you all ready for our visit tomorrow then?"
"Oh, yes!" I replied cheerfully, hopefully disguising the panic in my voice, having completely forgotten the arrangement.

So it's off to the supermarket in the morning to see what they've got in the way of chocolate fudge cakes...

(In my defence, my phone was stolen a month ago, and as my diary was on it, I was relying on memory. Knew there'd be SOMETHING I'd forget!)

[Claire King]

I bake.

I don't understand the 'I don't have time' argument. Buns (cupcakes) take 30 minutes start to finish.

At risk of taking SM seriously (never) it IS important to teach children how food is made, the ingredients, the nutrition, the science and MOST importantly of all...licking the wooden spoon.

It's a brilliant thing to do together with the children, they can get messy, create something and enjoy it afterwards.

I do admit though, that we are very fond of icing all sorts of mullarky onto the top of the buns and the coloured icing in squeezy tubes is so much more practical than mixing up 5 batches of icing and messing around with bags and nozzles!

[supermother]

I've just avoided all that in 24 years as a mother. Can't be bothered. I've more important things to do than bake a cake.

[Sho]

My Chef made the most beautiful fairy princess cake for #1 daughter's 6th birthday. Turrets, towers, individual roof tiles out of marbled fondant icing, painted ivy and flowers. It took him about 3 days and, in the words of the MasterCards - priceless.

And not one of the little pests ate it.

On the other hand, cupcakes and plain sponges go down a treat.

Just goes to show!

[mumoftwo]

Oh, I buy birthday cakes. I do love making them, but only if I have the time and the energy, and I find just before organizing a big party is not one of them!

[Sho]

Home-made for us, every time. But then I do have my own Chef at home who specialises in desserts.

However: I totally subscribe to the thought that single parents, and full-time working parents, and those who are baking-skill-challenged and pretty much everyone if they want should just offer up some of Mr. Kipling's best and have done with it.

[ww]

ps: I am lucky enough to have more than just the one friend - in case anyone was wondering after my previous post.

[ww]

Oh I enjoy baking - my efforts taste fine (according to my family and friend), but they just don't generally look very stylish. And I was rather taken aback to find that baking for a pre-school cake sale involves producing intricately iced miniature cup cakes in a wide variety of designs (at least it does round our way). Sadly my stuff always looks like it was actually made by the pre-school pupils. As for homemade b-day cakes: I used to have very high principles and always make my own. But then there was the cat-themed birthday party with the cat-shaped cake. All good until I iced it. And then it ended up looking like the cat had been run over. And now child 2 has a thing for those vile, gaudy, expensive and near-tasteless cakes from the supermarket and pre-ordered a "spiderman cake" about 6 months in advance... After the run-over cat, I'm not even going to attempt spiderman.

[KM]

I adore baking. But I have a real and irrational grudge about giving it away to a school....no matter how I reason myself out of it, if I bake I think of it as a gift for us, I want us to enjoy it at home....
how selfish is that!

[Martin]

I made my girlfriend crumpets for breakfast this morning. Drizzle with butter and slide a poched egg on top; heaven!

And this evening we had home made apple pies - individual ones with a slice of marzipan among the apples. She is so lucky to have me, and I am so happy to have someone to cook for. Throw your packet cake mix away and rediscover the joy of licking the bowl.

[LM]

Meant to add: and my daughter loves helping! She told me the other day that we need more brown bananas because we haven't made banana bread in a while.

On a related subject: who makes vs. buys their child's birthday cake?

[LM]

I grew up with a mother & grandmother who baked and have rediscovered it since having a child of my own. I really enjoy it and love an excuse to bake as we don't need all those things just for ourselves. As Chloe said, for something like a chocolate cake or cupcakes or scones, it's just as fast to throw the ingredients in a bowl as to follow the directions on a special mix packet and frankly, I don't really care if it looks a bit amateurish - I'm not a professional and as Nigel Slater says, part of the charm is in looking home-made (or so I tell myself).