If you are planning a fundraiser and you want me to participate, make it a bake sale. I love a bake sale. Baking for a living is one thing but when I was not in this line of work, I always looked forward to an excuse to bake for a good cause. Having a reason to bake the things I like, show off my skills and get immediate feedback the day of the sale is a perfect combination.
When I worked outside of food service, as a caseworker or when I was in retail management, I was often asked to help with bake sale fundraisers. For each bake sale, I would have my standard recipes and then maybe a new recipe or two that I hadn’t had a reason to make. I always assumed that someone else would bake the easy things like brownies and tried to stay away from some of the obvious choices. One “must-bake” recipe was for Monster Cookies and they are a favorite everywhere I take them. An oatmeal based cookie with peanut butter, raisins, chocolate chips and M&Ms, this cookie has something for everyone.
One fun aspect of the bake sale is that you don’t always know what the big hit item is going to be until you give it a shot. At one work bake sale I decided to do Blueberry Buckle, an old fashioned coffee cake with blueberries and a crunchy sweet topping. The yummy squares of cake got rave reviews and a few requests for the recipe. I was never sure whether to share the recipes or keep my secrets to drive sales at the next event.
I have baked a lot for bake sales over the years and have a pretty good idea of what will sell. For a work bake sale I tend to stick with the type of items that can be easily portioned and wrapped up in single serves. That might be one big cookie or three small cookies in a baggie, miniature quick breads or muffins and I have good luck with individual pieces of fudge. For a bake sale at a take away type event you can go for larger items like entire loaves of bread, packs of rolls or sweet buns and larger bags of cookies that one might share at home.
My ultimate bake sales memories are the ones we used to have while my grandmother was still around. Every year the town where she lived had a town lawn sale and my family did a bake sale alongside the usual lawn sale fodder. We sold a lot of baked goods off my grandmother’s front lawn and became known through out the town. Grandma was the pie maker, my aunt did quick breads and some cookies, my mother and myself were the ones to deal with yeast breads as well as adding to the selection of cookies, quick breads and other goodies. It was a good way to make a little extra money and is an example of the kind of family fun I grew up with.
These family bake sales started before I ever considered going to culinary school and ironically, although I learned all the finest baking and pastry techniques, what I really love is good simple baking. I think what I would really like is a bake sale that I can put on every day… welcome to my lawn, would you like a cupcake?
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