Cake Sales: Guide

If you're interested in cake sales, you might also find some good ideas and inspiration in our Cake Auctions how2guide here, and we would strongly recommend that you read our know-how section on Food and Drink: Law and Best Practice here for any activity that involves preparing, handling or selling food.

Before you start any fundraising activity, it's always a good idea to contact your chosen cause and let them know what you're planning, and how you're aiming to go about it. You should also try and discuss with them exactly how you're going to collect, look after and hand over any money you raise on their behalf. There is advice on handing fundraised money in our know-how guide here.

In the case of cake sales, this might seem pretty straightforward - you make the cakes, you sell them and you hand over the cash - but there are still a few issues to consider before you start. Mostly these are to do with costs in advance - remember that it’s always best practice to avoid financial outlay wherever possible when you're fundraising - so you might want to start off by thinking about:

If you're doing a small, one-off cake sale, you might be prepared to cover the cost yourself. If you're planning to have a bigger sale, or a regular presence at a local market or at your school, church or workplace, you might want to consider another option, such as asking a local business for sponsorship. Supermarkets are often happy to do this, but you will need to approach the manager in writing well in advance of your event. See here for our know-how guide on asking companies for sponsorship, or our letter template asking for food at fundraising events could be adapted and used to ask for ingredients instead.

If you’re fundraising at work, you could always ask your employer to cover the cost of your ingredients in exchange for the batch of mouthwatering treats that you'll be selling to keep their staff happy in the foyer every Friday lunchtime.

You could also ask friends and family if they'd be prepared to help launch your fundraising efforts by donating one of more of the ingredients needed.

Just because you're going to be selling loads of cakes doesn't mean you've got to make all of them - and plenty of people enjoy baking as a hobby. Many hands make light work - if you're selling at a fete or fair, perhaps you could persuade a group of helpers to make one small cake or a batch of smaller cakes each? That way, you have a group of people each covering a small cost instead of taking on one larger amount yourself. See here for advice on building a volunteer fundraising group.

You might also persuade some of your helpers to lend a hand with selling the cakes on the day, and with advertising your activity to their friends and family.

If your sale isn't part of a larger event, you will need to advertise it well. Do you need to find someone to help with the cost of designing and printing posters, leaflets of fliers?

If you are selling at a market, fete or fair, are you going to be charged for your pitch, or could you persuade the organisers to donate your stall for free?

Have you got all of the equipment you need? Most people have a bowl, wooden spoon, weighing scales etc, but it may be that you want to use a specific size of cake tin that you don't have for example. Many large kitchenware and specialist cake decorating shops provide cake tins to hire, so you should definitely consider this as an option rather than buying them - they might even let you hire them for free, if you explain what your event is in aid of.

It may be that, at first, paying some start-up costs is unavoidable for you to be able to do the best job you can of your cake sale, but always remember that the aim is to raise as much money as possible for your cause, so you're going to need to be able to guarantee getting this money back and a fair bit more for your activity to be worthwhile. If it's going to be a gamble, don't do it!

Once you've got a rough plan as to how you're going to pay for, produce and sell your cakes, it's time for the "who, what, when and why?"

What

What kind of cake will you be selling? Are you thinking of cupcakes in the canteen or lovingly hand-crafting three-tiered wonders made to order for special occasions?

Have some fun thinking creatively about this:

• Could you make cakes iced in the colours of your charity?
• If you're selling your cakes at an event like a fundraising football match, could you ice batches of buns in the colours of each team?
• How about baking a batch of plain fairy cakes and hosting a "decorate your own cake" stand for smaller children?
• A summer fete could call for scones with jam and cream, while puddings and sweet mince pies are more appropriate to a Christmas Fair.
• Baking can even be appropriate to a location - the cafe at Stonehenge does a roaring trade in rock-cakes, for example.

Definitely spend a bit of time researching recipes - the internet is full of free recipe sites, and libraries have whole sections devoted to cake making and decorating - but remember to be realistic in your plans in terms of time, ability and recoupable cost.

Who and where

Who will be buying your cakes depends largely on where you're planning to sell them. If you're going to be selling at a school fete, you might be preparing batches of cheap, brightly-iced buns with sweets on top. If you've been offered a stall at a farmers' market, you'll have customers looking for natural, local ingredients, so might want to consider fruit loaf, apple tarts or locally-produced honey cakes. They'll be more expensive to make, but you will be able to charge more for them.

If you're hoping to provide a service selling special occasion cakes to friends or colleagues, you should research how much other people are charging for a similar product.

If it's a one-off cake sale day you're planning, you might be able to persuade smaller local bakeries, cafes or food shops to sell your cakes for you. This probably won't be something they'd be happy to do regularly, as it could prevent customers from buying their own stock!

Cake sales can work best as part of a larger event, so it may be that the larger event's venue dictates what facilities you will have to sell your cakes.

You can sell cakes at most events with just a (clean!) table and a box to keep your money in (remember to take a cash float!) so it's a very flexible fundraising activity. However, if your creations are more complex, you'll have a bit more to think about.

• Will your cakes require any special storage or handling?
• Will they need to be kept refrigerated?
• If you're going to be outside in the middle of summer, you should avoid cakes covered in cream, butter-icing or chocolate.
• How will you get them to your venue in one piece?
• Will you need bags to sell them in?
• Plates to serve them on?
• Cutlery?
• Washing up facilities?
• Rubbish bins?

Where you sell your cakes will also affect how much you will be able to charge for them, so if you're offered a venue, research if anything similar has taken place there in the past, and if so, how it was priced.

If your cake sale is part of a larger event or in your school or workplace, it's unlikely you'll need any additional licences, risk assessments or insurance to carry out this activity. If you're planning to sell cakes in any other location, you should always get the permission of the owner and get the go-ahead from your local authority before beginning.

Remember that knocking on doors to sell your wares is never something you should attempt.

When

Cakes might be a great "impulse" purchase, but if you let people know when your cake sale is due to take place, you're going to sell even more and make more money.

Decide how regularly you will be baking. If you can make a regular feature of your cake sales, e.g. at church once a month, or outside the school gates every Friday afternoon, you'll create an expectation, and people will be more ready to buy every time you're there. Your school or workplace newsletter or website might also agree to advertise your efforts for free.

Even if your cake sale is going to be a one-off, you should aim to put up posters (there is a poster template here) or deliver fliers around the area where your sale is going to take place, to let people know you'll be there. Try and include a colourful picture or a photo of a homemade cake if you can.

It might be that you're planning your sale to coincide with a charity's national fundraising day, in which case you won't be able to choose the date, but if you can, think about times of year when people are most likely to be buying cake anyway - religious festivals, public holidays and Valentine's Day would all be good places to start.

If you always have cake at work for colleagues' birthdays, perhaps you could suggest that (provided a certain amount of money is raised by your workmates) you'll bake instead, and give the money to your chosen cause.

You'll also have to plan a timetable for all of this baking, both for yourself and for any helpers who'll be providing cakes. Some cakes can be baked, cooled and then frozen, others can't - make sure you follow the guidelines in the recipe you have followed if you're planning to store cake in advance in this way.

If you have a group of people making cakes for an event, make sure everyone has been told clearly when and where they should deliver their offerings, and to mark any tins, trays or boxes clearly with their names if they want them back. Its important to make sure you have also asked every volunteer baker to provide a FULL list of ingredients and a "baked on" date with their cakes.

You should always label your cake with the date it was baked, and (if the recipe provides it) a suggestion to how long it can be stored for.

You'll sell more cakes in the afternoon than at any other time of the day.

Why

YOU know why you're holding a cake sale, but the people you're aiming to sell to won't unless you tell them! Make sure you promote your fundraising cause, whether it's on your posters in advance, a banner on your stall, by including information with each purchase or any other method. You could also ask the local newspaper to feature your cake sale - click here for a letter template to help you do this.

Remember, this isn't just cake you're selling - it's "cake-in-aid-of!" Letting people know that your cakes are being sold to support a cause doesn't just help spread the word about your charity - it also gives people a legitimate excuse to buy more cake!

When nothing is left but crumbs and cash, you should aim to get your fundraised money to your chosen cause as quickly as possible.

Let people know how much you've raised, whether it's in your school or work newsletter, or by asking the local paper to write a short piece.

Thank everybody who helped, from the supermarket who provided the ingredients to the people who helped sell cakes on the day. If you've got a further fundraising event planned, you should also take this opportunity to let people know about it.

And when your event is over and the washing up's done, don't forget to share what you know with us here at how2fundraise, either on our "My fundraising" pages or on our forum, here