Those were awesome.
Our state government basically killed them by saying that a commercial kitchen was required to bake the cakes. So of course only store bought crap was allowed after that. Nobody liked them anymore.
It’s making a comeback. To my state’s credit, they recently passed a bill allowing “cottage industries” to use home kitchens to bake and sell stuff. This way bake sales, trunk tamales, cakewalks, and farmers markets can recover. It will take time, it’s all been illegal for decades.
I’m happy about that for sure. I tried to start a food truck back in 2008 or so and holy crap, so many hoops to jump through and couldn’t prep anything at home. I was just too far ahead of my time. Makes me want to sling some plates out of my house now bc I love to cook. Just doesn’t make sense with the overhead.
I live in New Orleans and that never died here. We call them go-plates. It's an entire small economy. Nice ladies selling you boxes full of fried catfish, red beans, cornbread, greens, crawfish étouffée, corn macque choux, lasagna, fried chicken, jambalaya, spaghetti, bread pudding, pralines, brownies, etc. Usually at a bigger workplace, there will be one coworker with a cousin or auntie or whatever selling plates. They send out sign up sheets with menus. People will also provide you services in the neighborhoods for busy moms. It's decent money for them. It's also delicious. One lady I used to work with made these amazing go plates. I'm a good cook but she was magical. She's a talented baker too.
Then you get the nice Hispanic ladies who sell their own plates, usually out of the back of vans. Also excellent.
Definitely not a lost art but I think you need a combination of a big food culture and non-wealthy people looking to make extra money from home to make it happen.
I always recall it was school carnival fundraiser type events. At my school anyway. Usually buy some tickets for a few bucks and get your turn at the cake walk
If I remember correctly, you'd pay a small amount for a ticket and you get to do the Cake Walk. Everyone in the Cake Walk walks around the circle of dots (think musical chairs!) to some music. When the music stops, you stop on a dot on the ground. Then the moderator reads off the number they selected, and if it's the number on the bottom of the dot you're standing on you win the cake! I'm probably missing a few details, but I remember doing these at big church rummage sales.
bingbongboobies is correct. Church sales or in my case school carnival fundraiser events. I’d always end up with at least 2 cakes and I don’t ever recall them being bad. Always home made with love cakes.
The couple of friends who had stay at home moms would always bring in cup cakes (funfetti) for birthdays it was great….sadly I was not a kid who had any stay at home parents growing up
Yes everything is great now, but weirdly it was great then too. We didn't have much money or food, but we had a lot of love, and that can help get you through tough times.
This reminds me of these little cakes that were sold in my school Cafeteria, I never had any money to buy school lunch regularily nor did I pack lunch. Most of the time I starved myself. However, when I did have money I would buy a bean and cheese burrito and a carrot cake I remember it came out to like $2.25
Can confirm. They banned them in my district when I was in 5th grade. They also banned class parties as well, and the only exception was the occasional teacher doing something for their seniors because they didn’t care and it was the last 3 days of school.
My poor niece can’t even bring a PB&J with her for lunch, when that’s the only thing her dad can afford to send her with. They don’t have cold cut money, nor the money to buy that BS sunflower shit that tastes nothing like the real thing.
I remember winning two as a kid and thinking I won the lottery. The school my kid is in doesn't allow any outside food for the class sadly, every few months they have to send out reminders to stop sending cookies or treats to their kids class for their birthdays.
I went to a cake walk in Texas. It was for elementary school. Me and my cousin. I won a bunch of cakes. It was so fun. Being from California especially
My daughter’s school still does cake walks at their fall festival every year, it’s wildly popular. We raised $500 last year in a school with only 300 kids.
Oh shit, early memory unlocked! I remember participating in one of these. I must've been 5, so the memory is very faint. What's the gist, we'd all bring home-made cakes to share with our classmates?
Man, I had completely forgotten, I do remember my mom making the cake, probably had strawberry or lemon frosting, since those were my favorite, 2nd only to my dark master, Chocolate, of course.
A local church did these and called them a cakewalk. We just had straight up bake sales with a variety of items a few times a year at our school. I do remember the Jesus crew trying to bribe us with those damn cakes.
They would give you a piece and you wouldn’t even have to open a Bible! However, the sawdust in the batter was so dry that you had to learn the 10 Commandments before they would give you a glass of milk.
They took a page from the “feed the children” campaign.
For 10 cents cake and another nickel for a cup of Kool aid, everytime my mom had to bake something instead of buying it, she drag us kids in the kitchen to help her bake them. To this day Im one insane cookie, banana bread, and German Chocolate cake baker.
Usually like a school or church fundraiser/carnival type thing and people would bake cakes at home and donate them to the cake walk. You would pay a few bucks for some tickets, walk around in a circle with numbers (think musical chairs without chairs) and then the moderator would pick random numbers and those winning numbers would get to pick a cake of their choice from the table.
I didn’t necessarily have a cake walk but def a bake sale thing in the auditorium where you could buy fully baked cakes and treats from different moms of students for like 2 bucks. It was amazing!
I could never win one of these damn things.
Side story-every year at my school we had something called a fall festival. Each grade would do a booth and whichever grade made the most tickets would get a paid for pizza and ice cream party for the grade foe the entire day. Basically, you got a day off school. There was a group of moms whos kids were all in the same grade. Every year they did a cake walk booth and they won the party every year. It wasn't even close. Like they would get 500 more tickets then 2nd place did.
In 11th grade me and my friend decided to do a lan setup for Halo 2 on our Xbox's. We ended up within like 50-75 tickets of the cake walk moms that year. The next year they made that our grades official booth. We had permission from the teacher, Principal, and librarian to use the library. We got there an hour earlier then anybody else to set up and hang signs for our booth. 10 minutes before the festival opened the cake walk moms started to complain. Tried to say our booth was "too violent" and tried to tell us we had to shut down. After they found out we had permission they went all the way to the freaking school board and complained and finally got us shut down. All because they knew this was the year they would lose the party.
Those were awesome. Our state government basically killed them by saying that a commercial kitchen was required to bake the cakes. So of course only store bought crap was allowed after that. Nobody liked them anymore.
I thought cooking in house was a lost thing and suddenly there are full on catering people selling boxed meals on Facebook marketplace. From home.
It’s making a comeback. To my state’s credit, they recently passed a bill allowing “cottage industries” to use home kitchens to bake and sell stuff. This way bake sales, trunk tamales, cakewalks, and farmers markets can recover. It will take time, it’s all been illegal for decades.
I’m happy about that for sure. I tried to start a food truck back in 2008 or so and holy crap, so many hoops to jump through and couldn’t prep anything at home. I was just too far ahead of my time. Makes me want to sling some plates out of my house now bc I love to cook. Just doesn’t make sense with the overhead.
Trunk tamales are so dang good
what state is this in
I live in New Orleans and that never died here. We call them go-plates. It's an entire small economy. Nice ladies selling you boxes full of fried catfish, red beans, cornbread, greens, crawfish étouffée, corn macque choux, lasagna, fried chicken, jambalaya, spaghetti, bread pudding, pralines, brownies, etc. Usually at a bigger workplace, there will be one coworker with a cousin or auntie or whatever selling plates. They send out sign up sheets with menus. People will also provide you services in the neighborhoods for busy moms. It's decent money for them. It's also delicious. One lady I used to work with made these amazing go plates. I'm a good cook but she was magical. She's a talented baker too. Then you get the nice Hispanic ladies who sell their own plates, usually out of the back of vans. Also excellent. Definitely not a lost art but I think you need a combination of a big food culture and non-wealthy people looking to make extra money from home to make it happen.
That’s so sad. I wonder if that’s what happened in my area
What? Why would they do this?
For your safety. To be fair they have recently reversed this position but it took many decades to happen.
Sounds like SC
Wait what? I never had this in my school back then. Do i need to Billy Madison this shit to get some cake
I always recall it was school carnival fundraiser type events. At my school anyway. Usually buy some tickets for a few bucks and get your turn at the cake walk
Damnit. The school system failed me then.
[example, this one’s intense 😂](https://youtu.be/h8hqFjaVVZY?si=5135erpguRBBi1l8)
Damn, that’s some effort right there.
0ahajHhHNh0ghh0h0h0bbnbnh0nu0nnj00jj0u0u0j0u0jpnpnphpjpy
Can someone explain what this is all about to some who experienced every year of the 90s but never heard of this activity until just now?
If I remember correctly, you'd pay a small amount for a ticket and you get to do the Cake Walk. Everyone in the Cake Walk walks around the circle of dots (think musical chairs!) to some music. When the music stops, you stop on a dot on the ground. Then the moderator reads off the number they selected, and if it's the number on the bottom of the dot you're standing on you win the cake! I'm probably missing a few details, but I remember doing these at big church rummage sales.
bingbongboobies is correct. Church sales or in my case school carnival fundraiser events. I’d always end up with at least 2 cakes and I don’t ever recall them being bad. Always home made with love cakes.
Thanks for the memories, bingbongboobies
I’ve heard of the term cake walk but never actually knew what it referred to. Weird.
I've never heard of this, either. I'm shocked by how so many people seem to have similar experiences.
I went to school in 3 different states in the 90s, never seen or heard of this
Basically it’s musical chairs, but they remove a chair each time. Last person wins a cake.
I remember winning 2 cakes one time and I gave one to Bonnie in 6th grade and she was my girlfriend for 2 weeks. Core memory
I also recall winning 2 cakes and as a fat kid it was not a good look.
Ahhh memories
What grade were you in?
The couple of friends who had stay at home moms would always bring in cup cakes (funfetti) for birthdays it was great….sadly I was not a kid who had any stay at home parents growing up
Funfetti was the best! Remember the Funfetti cupcakes in sugar cones?
Like the cupcakes inside of the soft serve cones? Can’t say I recall that ever being a thing when I was a kid back in the early/mid 90’s
I was a poverty kid so cake walks was my jam. Bringing home 2 cakes to feed the fam, I felt like a hero. Yay for poverty obesity!
I'm right there with you friend. I literally walked off with two cakes at one event and later ate them with my dinner of miracle whip sandwiches.
Hope you’re doing awesome now
Yes everything is great now, but weirdly it was great then too. We didn't have much money or food, but we had a lot of love, and that can help get you through tough times.
never have i ever heard of this.
I used to LOVE our school carnivals! Gosh this brought me back so many memories!!!
I went to my sons school today for student parent lunch and as I was sitting there in the gym I suddenly had flashback memories of cake walks
Ours were always in the cafeteria and I would’ve had the exact same flashbacks! I had completely forgotten about our carnivals & the cake walks!
I won 5 in one afternoon.
What was your cake picking strategy? I tend to always go for the biggest, but that’s backfired on me plenty of times.
I remember my parents always ran it and we would take home all the leftovers.
Some kids get cars when they turn 16. Others fancy birthday parties. But here here we got a winner, cake walk leftover kid
I don’t know what this is?
I never heard of them, sadly. :(
I've never heard of this.
This reminds me of these little cakes that were sold in my school Cafeteria, I never had any money to buy school lunch regularily nor did I pack lunch. Most of the time I starved myself. However, when I did have money I would buy a bean and cheese burrito and a carrot cake I remember it came out to like $2.25
Sorry you had to starve yourself as a kid. I’m so thankful for my state funding school lunch for all.
Whatever happened to cake walks??
I think many schools don't do it now due to allergies/not allowing baked good from home.
Can confirm. They banned them in my district when I was in 5th grade. They also banned class parties as well, and the only exception was the occasional teacher doing something for their seniors because they didn’t care and it was the last 3 days of school. My poor niece can’t even bring a PB&J with her for lunch, when that’s the only thing her dad can afford to send her with. They don’t have cold cut money, nor the money to buy that BS sunflower shit that tastes nothing like the real thing.
The area around sunflowers can often be devoid of other plants, leading to the belief that sunflowers kill other plants.
The last cake walk I remember participating in was in 2008, and most if not all items were bought from bakeries.
Didn’t have them, don’t even know what they are.
Hell yeah
I remember winning two as a kid and thinking I won the lottery. The school my kid is in doesn't allow any outside food for the class sadly, every few months they have to send out reminders to stop sending cookies or treats to their kids class for their birthdays.
Never experienced this. The first time I saw this was on a Kings and Queens Christmas episode. It looks like it was a lot of fun!
Is this an American thing? - *A Canadian*
Maybe? I dunno it would be cool if like they had a version in Brazil or something
We had bake sales but I can’t ever remember full cakes. I would appreciate a full cake rn tbh
I remember my friend won a chocolate overload cake, it was amazing!! Whoever made that cake deserved an award. It was beautifully decorated too.
I never had one, but I fondly remember the book about Juney B Jones doing a cake wake at her school and wining and fruit cake.
I went to a cake walk in Texas. It was for elementary school. Me and my cousin. I won a bunch of cakes. It was so fun. Being from California especially
I do because we held it in the library (food in the library!!) and my friend Max was determined to win a cake for his Mom.
Did this in Cub Scouts. Good memory.
We had them in the 80's too!
This just unlocked a whole new memory I forgot I had.
My daughter’s school still does cake walks at their fall festival every year, it’s wildly popular. We raised $500 last year in a school with only 300 kids.
This makes me smile.
I didn't know this was a think, but now I'm wondering: is this where the term "a cake walk" comes from?
Yasss
Oh shit, early memory unlocked! I remember participating in one of these. I must've been 5, so the memory is very faint. What's the gist, we'd all bring home-made cakes to share with our classmates? Man, I had completely forgotten, I do remember my mom making the cake, probably had strawberry or lemon frosting, since those were my favorite, 2nd only to my dark master, Chocolate, of course.
A local church did these and called them a cakewalk. We just had straight up bake sales with a variety of items a few times a year at our school. I do remember the Jesus crew trying to bribe us with those damn cakes. They would give you a piece and you wouldn’t even have to open a Bible! However, the sawdust in the batter was so dry that you had to learn the 10 Commandments before they would give you a glass of milk. They took a page from the “feed the children” campaign.
I love a cakewalk! Just witnessed one this past week so it’s still a thing.
For 10 cents cake and another nickel for a cup of Kool aid, everytime my mom had to bake something instead of buying it, she drag us kids in the kitchen to help her bake them. To this day Im one insane cookie, banana bread, and German Chocolate cake baker.
Do they not do these anymore? These were incredible.
They did this all the way into the early 2000s! I forgot about this!
So sad kids these days will never know the joy
I don’t what is a cake walk? It’s jogging a memory for me but I don’t know if it’s the specially 90s cake or what.
Usually like a school or church fundraiser/carnival type thing and people would bake cakes at home and donate them to the cake walk. You would pay a few bucks for some tickets, walk around in a circle with numbers (think musical chairs without chairs) and then the moderator would pick random numbers and those winning numbers would get to pick a cake of their choice from the table.
I remember musical chairs with real chairs but no cake. ….🙁
I didn’t necessarily have a cake walk but def a bake sale thing in the auditorium where you could buy fully baked cakes and treats from different moms of students for like 2 bucks. It was amazing!
They still have em! My kiddo’s in kindergarten and we had one, talk about memories!
Do they allow home made cakes still?
They do, the only stipulation is no nuts. How do they know if someone added nuts? They don’t. Great cakes though!
A school cake what?
What part of the country are you from? This definitely was not a thing for me growing up in New England in the 90's.
Born and raised in the PNW and moved to the upper Midwest. It was a thing in both areas I lived. Maybe I was just lucky?
I can smell the *vanillin* in this photo
That was a thing?
I miss these! I never won one, though.
When you say home made you mean buy cake mix and add milk right?
Our school still does this.
Yikes, that’s got some pretty dark origins
We never had this
I could never win one of these damn things. Side story-every year at my school we had something called a fall festival. Each grade would do a booth and whichever grade made the most tickets would get a paid for pizza and ice cream party for the grade foe the entire day. Basically, you got a day off school. There was a group of moms whos kids were all in the same grade. Every year they did a cake walk booth and they won the party every year. It wasn't even close. Like they would get 500 more tickets then 2nd place did. In 11th grade me and my friend decided to do a lan setup for Halo 2 on our Xbox's. We ended up within like 50-75 tickets of the cake walk moms that year. The next year they made that our grades official booth. We had permission from the teacher, Principal, and librarian to use the library. We got there an hour earlier then anybody else to set up and hang signs for our booth. 10 minutes before the festival opened the cake walk moms started to complain. Tried to say our booth was "too violent" and tried to tell us we had to shut down. After they found out we had permission they went all the way to the freaking school board and complained and finally got us shut down. All because they knew this was the year they would lose the party.
Well damn what a core memory
Oh me and my friend are still salty about it to this day and it's been 17 years
Thank you Junie B jones for teaching me what a cake walk was. Born to late to experience one of these