Charity Bake Sale

Earlier this month I mentioned in a previous blog entry that a colleague of mine was holding a charity bake sale to raise money for The Alzheimer's Society, for which he will be climbing Ben Nevis in June. I am sure you will all agree, this is a very worth while and important cause. To support Peter in reaching his target many of us donated a home made cake (and many of us also purchased a huge amount of cake!!). This got everybody baking! Putting their cake-baking skills to the test to produce tasty treats!

The bake sale was a fantastic success not only did it raise a huge amount of money for the charity, it  was great fun to be involved with and got everybody chatting, providing a fun day at work for everybody. It was lovely to see what other people bake at home and some of their family recipes.

Peter and his collogues worked extremely hard on organising the event and many members of staff contributed by baking something. Money was raised through buying all varieties of home made cakes, pastries, cookies and puddings, as well as a very successful printed recipe booklet, containing recipes from all the bakers involved. The cakes sold out at rapid speed! To the extent that myself and a friend ran to get some cake before it was too late! There was so much to choose from, from sausage rolls to ginger cake, waffles to brownies, cup-cakes to slices of lemon drizzle cake and all manner of sponges, all served with tea or coffee and supplied to you in a lovely little cake box with a napkin.

Cleverly, for those who had been eagerly awaiting the cake sale but the day happen to fall on their day off, Peter took orders and pre-boxed cakes for those people to pick up the next day. This meant no one missed out and Peter got the chance to raise yet more money! Brilliant!

If you are thinking of holding a bake sale to raise money for charity the here is some of Peter's Top Tips!

"Hello! My name is Peter Elia. I recently had a very successful Cake Sale at my place of work with the help of two of my friends. We raised almost £400 (for the Alzheimer’s Society) in an organisation which only has around 100 staff. So, here are my……………….

Top five Tips on maximising profit for a charity Cake Sale!

1. Try to get as many people baking as possible. Explain the importance of your chosen charity and how their contribution will make a difference.

2. Make sure you have a variety of cakes, perhaps some savory and one or two gluten or nut free cakes.

3. Get your friends/colleagues to send you their recipes and put them all together in a booklet. You can also sell the Cookery Booklet for £2. This will also assist with your cake sales as customers will be keen to try as many cakes as possible.

4. Charge £1 a slice for the cakes and 50p for smaller items eg Cookies, Cup Cakes. Make sure you have plenty of cake boxes. You want to encourage your customers to buy as many cakes as possible.

5. Give yourself plenty of time to organise your cake stall. Make it as attractive as possible. Have paper plates, plastic forks at the ready. You can even sell tea and coffee for 50p a cup, so have some cups too. I managed to obtain paper for the cookery booklet, cake boxes, paper plates, forks and cups for free, when I explained to local business that all profit from my cake sale would go to the Alzheimer’s society.

Finally, don’t forget to enjoy the day, make lots of money for a great cause and have lots of fun eating lovely homemade cakes."

Here's Peter himself, Apron and all! 

I Hope this helps anyone who is thinking of baking to raise money for charity and I think Peter did exceptionally well in making it a great day for everyone involved! If anyone who reads this blog and has appreciated Peters tips  and would like to donate, you can via this link for his Just Giving Account.

For the bake sale I wanted to make something summery and fruity in the spring weather. I decided to make something I have been wanted to try for a little while. It is a Mary Berry recipe (of course!) called Wimbledon Cake as it made and decorated with strawberries and cream! Wimbledon Cake is like a gateaux, in that it is a fat less sponge with layers of cream in the middle, strawberries and passion-fruit and then decorated with another layer of cream and halved strawberries. It turned out very well and was very quick and easy! Making this cake also pushed me to finally buy an electric whisk! (yaaayyy) So expect some summer pavlovas cropping up over my summer blogs!! Anyway, I did end up making two Wimbledon cakes before the bake off, as my first one caught a little and I added the cream before realising I had no room in my fridge! So... unfortunately Tom and myself were forced to eat it! HA! It was nice to know what it would taste like too, it was very light and fruity. Here's the recipe for you to try if you like :)

Wimbledon Cake

Ingredients:

Butter for greasing

3 eggs

90g caster sugar

90g self raising flour

Filling and Topping:

300ml whipping cream, whipped until thick.

1 passionfruit 

Strawberries halved.

Method:

Lightly butter the cake tins (20 x 18 cm), line with baking parchment, the butter the parchment.

Put the eggs and sugar into a large bowl. Whisk with an electric mixer at high speed until the mixture is pale and thick enough to leave a trail when the whisk is lifted out.

Sift in half the flour and fold in gently. Repeat with the remaining flour.

Divide the mixture between tins. Tilt to spread the mixture evenly.

Bake in a pre-heated oven at 190c for 20-25 mins until well risen, golden and beginning to shrink away from the sides of the tins. Turn out on a wire rack, peel off the lining paper and leave to cool.

Spread half of the whipped cream over one of the sponges. Top with sliced strawberries and passion fruit pulp. Put the other sponge on top and press down gently.

Spread the remaining cream on top of the cake, smoothing it neatly with a palette knife. Decorate with halved strawberries.

Wimbledon Cake Take 1

In the panic that the Wimbledon cake would be rubbish and because I was in the baking mood, I also made some basic vanilla cupcakes with pink butter icing. They turned out lovely, but got squished on the bus ride to work carting too much cake! Got some weird looks...maybe they just skipped breakfast! 

I hope the Bake Sale Tips have been useful and that the fruity Wimbledon Cake gets you in the mood for summer! Let me know if you have enjoyed this blog by leaving a comment or Tweet me, I appreciate any feed back and would love to know if anyone is finding the recipes useful : )