Bake Sale Gems

Right about now schools and clubs are  planning their first bake sales of the season.These are crucial in bringing in funds for books, equipment and uniforms. To do that , fundraisers need popular along with unique recipes to bring in buyers.The products need to be tasty and tempting to make a bake sale profitable..

Cupcakes are always a big bake sale draw. Who doesn't love a tender little cake with a mound of buttercream icing? Yet they can be boring if done in vanilla with vanilla icing. A fun cupcake means a bought cupcake.  You can still have vanilla cake as the base but have a ball with the icing.If you're good at making buttercream flowers, then add them on top. Kids, especially love roses and they'd appreciate one topping a cake If you're not that artistic, then ice  cake tops like soccer balls and basketballs. This is perfect for any team involved in a bake sale. For cheer leading squads , why not carry the theme over to the treats? Pompoms can be made using paper, toothpicks and a glue gun.Dye the icing in the squad's colors and then match the pompoms to them . Another attention grabber? A riff on the classic Hostess squiggle cupcake. These can be a bit labor intensive to make so enlist another mom or one of the kids to help. The result will be worth it because you can charge a bit more for them.Clever taste combinations will also draw in customers. Think a stout-chocolate cupcake paired with an Irish Cream icing. For real zing try chili pepper cupcakes, an interesting marriage of heat and chocolate, guaranteed to peak interests and bring in cash.

Cookies are another pillar of a bake sale. The chocolate chip kind are always best sellers. Do they need to be tweaked? Just a little. They could be made with whole wheat instead of refined white flour, or instead of walnuts add chopped macadamia nuts for a different spin. Homemade Oreo cookies can be another crowd pleaser. The recipe is an easy one, especially if two people do the assembly. You can also make the filling mint and tint the icing green or pink. Sell them two or three to a bag with a mix of the two flavors. Unusual cookies such as cinnamon swirls and rocky roads will  pique a potential buyer's interest. Cinnamon swirls  again are an easy bake,It's just rolling out the dough, sprinkling a mix of sugar and the spice on it and then rolling the dough into a log. Chill and then cut into slices. You can even vary the spice by using nutmeg.Rocky road cookies are a guaranteed seller. Who wouldn't want a mix of chocolate , marshmallows, walnuts and more chocolate? The recipe is a basic chocolate snap that's topped with mini marshmallows and then popped back into the oven for two to three minutes. This toasts the marshmallows to a golden brown Chopped walnuts are then added and melted dark chocolate is drizzled over the entire cookie. You can even vary the chocolates by also using milk and white chocolate.

Make your bake sale a lucrative one with fun and interesting cupcakes and cookies. The result will be much needed funds for buying the class essentials or the team fundamentals. It starts with not just team spirit but with team creativity.