The Best Bake Sale Ever Cookbook

By Barbara Grunes and Susie Cushner

More than 120 quick and easy recipes for irresistible, kid-friendly treats that make for guaranteed bake sale success!

For every mother who has repackaged last-minute, store-bought brownies in tinfoil, The Best Bake Sale Ever Cookbook is a godsend. Packed with simple, crowd-pleasing recipes, it’s a terrific one-stop kitchen companion for parents, kids, or anyone on the go.

Cookies, brownies, breads, bars, cupcakes, muffins, cakes, pies, and more, this essential cookbook is stocked with bake sale sell-outs. Also included are helpful tips for packaging each delicious treat to ensure a beautiful presentation—and maximize sales. From chocolate-dipped fortune cookies to frosted ice cream cone cakes, these delightful recipes will inspire the baker (and fundraiser) in everyone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Oct 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9781452122670

Book preview

introduction

Fund-raising plans come and go, but the bake sale perseveres. Sweet baked goods for sale remind us of parties in the gym, the senior trip to Washington, D.C., or raising money for a new church roof. In recent years, bake sales have enjoyed a new surge of popularity as a way to raise money. Bake sales are an instantly recognizable event because just about anyone who belongs or has belonged to any group—whether it be a school, church, synagogue, mosque, or social club—has attended a bake sale or been asked to contribute to one.

Bake sales can be used to raise money for:

Political candidates or movements, both local and national

High school band trips

A gift to celebrate the service anniversary of a favorite teacher

The senior class trip to Washington, D.C.

Sports teams

Cheerleaders

The school library

The music program at the high school

The new private school

The local day-care center

Community theater

A new furnace for the temple

Donations to the Red Cross to help hurricane and earthquake victims

Help for a co-worker who’s fallen on hard times

Holiday toy drives for needy children

If you are as busy as most people these days, it may be tempting to just pick up some cookies at the grocery store. But how much more meaningful it is to bake something, to show off your baking skills and teach them to your children (or your nieces and nephews or your friend’s children).

Bake sales can be great learning experiences for kids. When my grandson’s school held a bake sale, the kids baked cookies, made signs to advertise the sale, decorated their tables, and waited on customers. After the sale, they used the money to buy holiday presents for less fortunate children in the area. They learned not only about earning money, but about giving.

I hope the recipes in this book inspire you to bake creations that disappear faster than you can say, That will be fifty cents, please.

Bake Sale Recipes

What sets a bake sale book apart from other baking and dessert books? Well, let’s start with the three Ps:

Presentation. Looks count. While pretty presentation isn’t mandatory, it will help your baked treats sell faster, and maybe even fetch a premium price. The emphasis in this book is on baked goods that show well—sugar pretzels, decorated cupcakes, and so on.

Portability. Dragging a lemon meringue pie off to the bake sale just doesn’t cut it, and don’t even think about letting chocolate mousse sit out in the gym for two hours. If it isn’t portable and doesn’t hold up well under variable conditions, it’s not in this book.

Portions. The same church ladies who normally cut two-inch brownies into quarters to avoid eating a real dessert will throw fat and calorie worries out the window when they’re buying brownies at a bake sale. Forget petite—that brownie had better look like it’s worth paying for. While you can sell a plate of smaller cookies or brownies, selling items by the piece usually yields better profits.

Another factor is familiarity. Bake sale foods tend to be old favorites, the sorts of items our mothers or grandmothers or aunts baked for school or church events: cherry pie, angel food cake, sugar cookies, brownies. People relate warmly to family connections and wax nostalgic about the kind of baking they rarely do themselves. Labeling a dessert Grandma’s Lemon Squares or Aunt Lucy’s Famous Apple Pie always sparks interest, especially if you have a good story to accompany the recipe.

Many of these recipes are fun to make with children. It is great for children to learn to give from the heart and the kitchen (especially to make money for the basketball trip or the new air conditioner for the school). And measuring ingredients is always a good way to sneak in a math lesson. Children love to bake sweet, fun things, such as Frosted Ice Cream Cone Cakes or a cake with a frosting so they can lick the bowl. Since children aren’t always as hygiene-conscious as they might be, see the Bake Sale Safety notes.

The recipes in this book are easy to make and don’t require exotic ingredients. When you come home from a frazzled day at work and suddenly remember that, oops, the fourth-grade bake sale is tomorrow, the nearest supermarket is about as far as you’ll want to travel for ingredients—if they’re not already in your pantry. And you’re not likely to want to make anything that requires sixteen steps or four hours to put together.

Do try to avoid last-minute baking. When you’re in a hurry, Murphy’s Law too often applies.

Of course, these recipes aren’t only for bake sales. Thanks to their portability and ability to hold up well, these desserts and treats make good host/hostess gifts, holiday presents for teachers, potluck contributions, and, in the case of most of the cookies and brownies, gifts to be mailed to far-off friends and relatives.

Packaging Ideas for Maximum Sales

Think outside the box—or plates, in this case. Party stores, dollar stores, supermarkets, and, yes, your own closets can provide creative packaging materials. Put together a craft box in which you save small pictures of flowers and food that can be cut out and glued to plastic cups or boxes. Have glue, scissors, and markers in the box so they are handy when you need them.

Craft and party stores sell see-through cellophane wrapping to wrap gift and Easter baskets. It comes in various colors, such as pink, light blue, and green. Buy some extra wrapping and store it until the next bake sale rolls around. Some supermarkets also carry plastic wrap with decorative party patterns, as well as colored plastic wrap.

Stock up on paper or plastic plates in various colors and sizes. They can be used to evoke holiday themes: black and orange plates for Halloween, yellow and red for autumn, blue and white for Hanukkah, red and green for Christmas, pastels for spring.

For labels, buy the fancy labels often used for home-canned goods. Or, find some fun clip art and fonts on the Internet and print your own labels.

Stickers in various themes can be used to seal packages and to decorate bags, cups, boxes, plates, and wrappings.

Collect decorative tins at house or yard sales, or save those you receive with a gift. Or stock up on discounted tins at craft and other stores after the holidays.

For a rustic or country look, line a straw basket with a colorful printed napkin, or weave raffia around the rim of a straw plate holder.

Chinese takeout-style boxes in various colors, available at some party goods or kitchenware stores, make fun containers for two or three large cookies— and, of course, for Chocolate-Dipped Fortune Cookies.

Party goods stores are also good sources for goodie bags, the paper or plastic bags that are filled with treats and given to children’s birthday party guests. You can often find fun and/or pretty gift bags in discount stores.

Save lengths of ribbon and yarn in various colors to tie up packages of baked goods.

Keep your eyes open for inexpensive serving trays at local thrift shops, dollar stores, or garage sales. You’d be surprised at the beautiful bargains you can pick up. And, unlike paper goods, you can reuse these again and again.

Shop the after-Christmas sales for fancy large bows. As a gift to your customers, run a large ribbon around the table and tack a large bow to the skirt of the tablecloth.

Easter decorations are usually marked down by 50 percent after the holiday. Stock up on supplies for the following year. Instead of an Easter basket filled with candy, fill one with cookies, cupcakes, brownies, and nestle a small stuffed bunny among the sweets. Sell the basket, complete with a large bow on the handle, at a pre-Easter bake sale.

As an alternative to cookie tins, buy sturdy boxes in varied shapes from a craft store. Decorate the tops and sides of the boxes, gluing on scraps of felt or other fabric, beads, sequins, silk flowers, and/or bits of ribbon. Be creative! If you’re handy with a brush, you can paint the decorations. Line the box with waxed paper before putting the cookies in it. Shoeboxes and other plain boxes can be decorated with various colors of tissue paper or colorfully illustrated by your children, using crayons or markers.

Those Extra Touches

One of the fastest ways to add value to just about any cookie—and a lot of other baked goods as well—is to add a bit of chocolate.

You can use any semisweet or bittersweet chocolate. I often use chocolate chips, because they’re designed to hold their shape and set easily into a firm topping. Or you can use confectionery coating (chocolate-flavored wafers that come in different colors and are melted to make a coating with the consistency of chocolate).

You can use a disposable pastry bag to pipe the chocolate, or make your own. Spoon the melted chocolate into a plastic sandwich bag and squeeze the chocolate into one corner. Use scissors to snip off a bit of that corner, scrunch the bag into a triangular pastry-bag shape, and squeeze to pipe the chocolate onto the cookie or pastry in whatever design the recipe calls for (or a design of your choice). Let sit at least 30 minutes to harden.

A simpler, if less elegant, way to decorate cookies or a cake with melted chocolate is to put the chocolate in a small bowl, dip the tines of a fork into it, and then gently wave the fork back and forth over the baked good so the chocolate drips in a free-form drizzle.

If you prefer color, you have lots of options these days. Decorating sugars and sprinkles are available in a mind-boggling array of colors and shapes. You can buy food color sprays and lightly spray over icings to render an airbrushed look.

To give your baked goods an extra boost of flavor, toast the nuts and coconut. Spread the nuts or coconut out on a cookie sheet and toast in a 350°F oven for 8 to 12 minutes, or until lightly golden. Let cool completely before using.

Transporting the Goods

If your child’s school holds fund-raisers that involve selling wrapping paper, save the long, narrow boxes the gift wrap comes in. They’re great for transporting a lot of cupcakes in a single layer. Or transport cupcakes in jelly-roll pans (rimmed baking sheets) or muffin pans.

Save thick (clean) cardboard box lids to use as sturdy, disposable bases for transporting cakes and pies. A lid does not have to be particularly deep as long as it keeps the baked good in place. Place the cake or pie in the box and pack any spaces around the plate with wadded paper towels or crushed waxed paper, being sure not to touch the frosting if you are packaging a cake.

If you don’t own a cake keeper, large round papier-mâché or wooden boxes (available at craft stores) can be used to transport cakes. Line the box with two crisscrossed strips of doubled foil before putting the cake in; you can then use the foil strips as handles to gently lift the cake from the box.

Cookies are easy—just wrap them and put them in a tin or a waxed paper– lined shoebox. If the cookies have a sticky filling or topping, transport them in a single layer in a large baking pan or sturdy box lid.

Be sure to pack delicate cookies carefully. The best way to package them is in paper cupcake liners in a tin just big enough to hold them, with wadded paper towels in the gap between the cookies and the tin lid.

To keep from disturbing the icing or topping, wrap a frosted cake (or sticky baked goods) tent-style. Place very long sheets of foil under the bottom of the plate or box lid and bring the foil up over the top, leaving a space between the baked good and the foil. Fold the top edges together.

Bake Sale Safety

Transport cakes and cookies in the back seat or front seat of the car, not the trunk, especially on a hot day.

Skip custard and whipped cream fillings. You don’t know how long the cake or other item will be sitting around before the buyer takes it home. Because of their high sugar and fat content, butter-based icings are usually safe at room temperature, but they should be kept away from high heat and humidity, which can melt them.

If someone brings a perishable item to your bake sale, try to sell it quickly. If that doesn’t work, refrigerate it: if you do not have access to a refrigerator and the item has been sitting out more than two hours, toss it (discreetly). Remember the old food safety motto: When in doubt, throw it out.

If your bake sale is outdoors, you will want to make sure the baked goods are covered as much as possible to protect them from insects. In some parts of the country, you may want to think twice about holding an outdoor bake sale in late summer, when yellow jackets (hornets) swarm. They are attracted to sweets and can be a real nuisance—not to mention a danger for anyone who’s allergic to their stings.

Always wash your hands before handling the food. Teach your children about food safety and being clean around food. When they’re helping package baked goods, it’s not a bad idea to cover their hands with small sandwich bags. Also, because of the slight (but real) risk of salmonella contamination, do not let children eat batter or dough made with raw eggs.

Peanuts can be a special problem. Although an allergy to peanuts is fairly rare, it usually is serious, even life-threatening. Some schools don’t allow peanuts on the premises; check beforehand. If you are selling baked goods that contain peanuts, or even possible traces of peanuts, be sure you post that fact prominently.

Setting Up a Sale

It pays to be organized if you are involved in actually setting up the sale. Do not rush; allow plenty of time to set up.

You will need:

At least one sign

One or more tablecloths

Change and a money box

A calculator (it will speed things along a bit if you get really busy)

Bags to put purchased items in

Flowers or other decorations

An apron

Markers

Masking tape and clear tape

Pens and paper

Labels

Assistants

Pricing

Pricing will vary depending on who’s hosting the sale and who’s expected to attend. You can price baked goods higher at a fund-raiser for the local school board candidate than at a sale where you are selling cookies to kids and parents for the senior class trip.

This is one area where the old retail trick of pricing things for $1.95 rather than $2.00 is not a good idea, unless you want to drive yourself crazy. To avoid dealing with a lot of small change, price in multiples of 25 cents. Do be sure to offer deals if people buy more: one cookie for 50 cents, three for $1.25. Offer variations based on size: 75 cents for a regular-size muffin, $1.25 for a large one; $1.00 for a large cookie, $1.50 for a