December 21, 2008
Drum roll, please! Our goal for the SPCA Bake Sale was $3000, and our total so far is $3005!! We have commitments for more online donations before the end of the year, so we may see that total go even higher! Woo hoo!!!
We are SO thankful for the wonderful response of the other tenants in our office building, for the online donations from friends and family, and for the support we received from the building management staff. Above all, we know that this tremendous success is humanly impossible. A few girls working for a week or so cannot logically bake enough goodies and sell them in one day to make $3000. It just doesn’t make sense. The only answer is that God did this, and we give Him all the glory for this event!
I talked about the brownies and bars the other day, and thought you might like to see a complete list of what we had for sale. Here’s what came out of my itty bitty kitchen:
- Pumpkin Cranberry Bread
Vegan Pumpkin Bread with Walnuts
Strawberry Bread with Pecans
Chocolate Sheath Cake
Gingerbread
Root Beer Bundt Cakes
Outrageous Oreo Brownies
Outrageous Brownies with Chocolate Chips and Walnuts
Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
Caramel Bars
Texas Pecan Pie Bars
RazzMaTazz Bars
Soft Peanut Brittle
Almond Toffee
Fudge in Christmas tree and gingerbread man shapes
Here’s what K and her sister L did:
- Banana Bread (with and without nuts)
Cranberry Orange Bread (with and without almonds)
Spice Cake
Snickerdoodles
Chocolate Peppermint Cookies
Rice Krispie Treats
German Chocolate Rice Krispie Treats
Chocolate-Dipped Pretzels
Chocolate Peanut Butter Fudge Crunch
Santa’s Whiskers
Peanut Butter Cookies
Sugar Cookies
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Our coworker SA did some incredible cream cheese pound cake and peppermint bark, as well as crafting our lobby signage that was so crucial in driving people up to our location.
So it was truly a team effort, and we’re all just THRILLED with the response we got! Beyond thrilled!
Here is a photo of our goodies just before the customers arrived. There were also two other cookie areas out of camera view so this isn’t even a complete picture of the massive amount of goodies we started with. You can see that we had a TON of stuff all packaged and labeled, and even had some backstock stashed in cabinets since it wouldn’t fit on our tables!
SPCA Bake Sale Goodies!
And here is what was left after 8 hours of sales! That’s it! Are you kidding me?!
This was all that was left!
So, after celebrating a great day that lasted 12 hours from set-up to clean-up, I stumbled home to face the mother of all messes in my kitchen. These were just the items that had to be hand washed! When, oh when, will those cats earn their keep and learn to do a dish or two during the day! ^..^
Mother of all kitchen messes!
Before I sign off this topic for a while (and start to plan next year’s event, God willing), I wanted to share a little of what we’ve learned about bake sale success during our 2 experiences. We aren’t experts by any means, but we’ve definitely learned some things!
- People love chocolate, especially brownies. Have plenty! Have more than you think you can sell!
- People love peanut butter.
- People like things that are decadent and that they wouldn’t make themselves.
- Lots of people dislike nuts so leave them out of recipes if they’re optional.
- People like BIG items – big slabs of bars, big pound cakes, big cookies. Our smaller items sold the slowest, even though the recipes were incredible. The small size just couldn’t compete for the attention of people up next to the hefty items, even if there were lots of them in the package.
- People love rice krispie treats! Go figure, they aren’t an item I especially care for, but I’m in the minority. They sell like hotcakes.
- Items in colored treat bags that can’t be seen clearly don’t move well.
- Cute packaging sells great though, even if the item can’t be seen through it.
- Putting out samples of an item lights a fire under it’s popularity.
- If you’re doing cake or bread, frosting or even a drizzle of glaze will pretty it up and help it sell better.
- Some items are just too unexciting to sell well. For example, I thought that good traditional gingerbread would be a great seller at Christmas. It turned out to be really slow. It just couldn’t compete in a world full of rich brownies!
- Pray, pray, pray!
So, one last shout out to K, L and SA for their hard work. You girls worked like crazy women, and it paid off! Thank you to building management for your fabulous support of this project. Thank you, of course, to our fellow tenants, friends and family for buying our goodies and contributing online! And most of all, thank you to God for blessing this event. We are SO thankful and humbled that You answered our prayers!
Now. What can I bake this weekend?
~BigSis
We’re already gearing up for our Third Annual Bake Sale, which will be held on December 14th. This is the second year that 100% of the proceeds will go to SPCA Texas, and we’re beyond excited to get crackin’ and bakin’! We have a lot of work ahead of us: shopping, baking, wrapping, labeling, transporting, and promoting, but we all agree that we have more fun doing this than pretty much anything else all year!
~LilSis
