Cakes in need...of eating! (For Children in Need)

On Friday it was year six (Laurice & Hannah) assembly at school and parents and children usually take refreshments together afterwards. Unfortunately the school have been unable to keep the kitchen open so shop bought cakes are the only available option. Laurice and Hannah decided that as a family we could make the cakes ourselves and donate the proceeds to Children in Need. As it was a non uniform day they wore Pudsey t-shirts and spotty neckerchiefs. Laurice made a couple of Mary Berry's lemon drizzle traybakes, a tray of all butter shortbread and I made 50 or so vanilla cupcakes. Between us we made Pudsey heads to sit on top of a mile high swirl of Italian meringue buttercream in vanilla or raspberry.
The first batch of cupcakes ended up at home uneaten as the lovely cupcake wrappers I had were useless. They tightened inwards around the middle of the cakes like a lace up corset (very odd) and as a result the cakes mushroomed out over the tops. I ended up using some very plain muffin cases from Asda. They are just the right size and never come away from the cupcakes. It's a shame they only come in white/dark brown.
Laurice covered a box for donations with spotty paper whilst Hannah and Millie cut out lots of small Pudseys to decorate it with. We covered the serving hatch of the kitchen with a large spotty cloth and despite squashing a few cakes in transit (they were too tall to put the lids on the boxes) we were ready to go.
Assembly was excellent with everyone in year 6 reading and singing beautifully. Laurice and Hannah both showed their winning cakes from Cake International to the rest of the school whilst others brought in swimming and dancing trophies for display.
The staff served the cakes and drinks and we made a decent bit of money to send in to Children in Need.
Kevin (hubby) got in on the act later that night by ringing the donation through on behalf of the school (St Mary's the Mount Primary in Walsall). He chatted to Sunita (Shobna Gulati) from Coronation Street's corner shop as we watched Take That on T.V.

As ever it was late and rushed and we hope to do better next year, a familiar theme maybe?