I work at a youth club, and last week promised a couple of girls that next week I would bring in some cakes and we would decorate them. This week though we ran an art project which attracted a few other kids so now I have about 10 or so that want to decorate them. I will be buying and baking. the cakes and everything myself because we don't really get any funding through work any more, and as much as I'd like to bake all of them a whole cake and take enough icing to decorate them, I really can't afford to pay that much! So now I need something alternative to do with them, but similar. I didn't want to do cupcakes as I wanted to use fondant so we could decorate in different ways. Any suggestions? I've also thought about cookies, but as I will be cooking everything before i go decorating a cookie each isn't going to take up a whole 2 hours lol. [/code]

Maybe you could make a sheet cake and cut out maybe 3x3 square pieces or larger for individual cakes. Mini cakes are great for introducing kids to cake decorating. I know they're small but then the children can use less fondant or gumpaste and make a few decorations. You could get a few cakes by cutting a sheet cake and it won't cost too much to make! HTH

Maybe a mini loaf pan to make several mini cakes?

Oh that's a good idea, I suppose small cakes won't need too much fondant will they. I've actually got a multisize square pan so I can bake squares from 1 inch to 12 inches in that, I think maybe I'll have to have a look around the discount stores in town for some cheap fondant, I got 1kg for 69p the other day which was great, it wasn't great fondant of course, but it would serve the purpose wouldn't it!

I've got a similar situation. My daughter-in-law wants to do a decorating party for some women and girls from her church. I'm going to do a bunch of 4in. cakes. We're going to use buttercream though so they can play with piping borders and drop flowers. We're going to make tootsie roll or starburst roses to put on top and pipe in leaves and drop flowers.

@davwattie I don't know how to quote, but that's where I got the 69p icing from lol. It was only about a week ago but I don't think they have any left now otherwise I would have bought it up! Lol

lol I always check when im in their just incase they have some in.

I usually use it for small models etc but I got a few boxes of the 1kg packs and used it for the off roader cake in my pics, got alot more profit out of that cake than I would of buying it at normal price.

You could always make a batch of marshmallow fondant (recipe on this site - MacsMom's). It is really cheap. You can make three pounds of fondant for less than $5.00.

@ jennifercullen...off topic but I think it's a really great thing you are doing.

Hey Jennifer Cullen,
I did an activity like this a few years ago with my Girl Scout Troop and we did it in two parts- piping and then fondant.

For the piping part, I got those white iced little debbie cakes and taught them to make leaves, flowers, dots, etc. I decorated a couple and then let them do two each. I know it wasnt homemade but it saved me a bunch of time on the baking.

for the Fondant section, I did the same thing with those little individual 4 inch poundcakes you can buy in the Wal-Mart Deli section (Lil Debbie makes them but they are not as wide). They got to butter cream the outside, roll the fondant and decorate them however they wanted. I brought some pics for inspiration but they really surprised me a bunch.

The next year when they were older I divided them into teams and taught them to do layer cakes and ice them but we had a smaller kitchen and access to an kitchen with a double oven.

We also did rice krispie treats molded into an assortment of small pans, covered them with fondant (teaches them to even it out) and decorated.

It was a blast and I got to focus more on the techniques because I wasnt worried about baking all those minis.

Happy Caking and God Bless the Volunteers!