On selling cupcakes

Here's a tip for more effective church outreach - if you're having a bake sale, don't use yellow food coloring for your cupcakes.

During the children's sermon on the Sunday following Hurricane Katrina, the kids of our congregation determined that they would hold a bake sale to raise funds for the relief efforts. They came up with the idea, and hey - who was I to stand in their way? They determined that we'd sell our baked stuff at an upcoming street fair and everyone was invited to participate in one way or another.

Fast forward to Friday night. After a long day at work, I arrived home to find Jen busily baking cupcakes from scratch using the recipe from the Magnolia Bakery (the best bakery in all of New York). Over the course of the evening, we made about four dozen of those things. I helped a little bit with the actual baking, but my main job was to create the butter cream frosting (also from scratch). I love making frosting. After searching for the food coloring, I discovered we were down to only yellow, green and blue. I had read some study that determined people are least likely to eat something with a blue color. I grabbed the first bottle - the yellow. Unfortunately, I think I squeezed a bit too much out. The frosting ended up about the shade of a sunflower.

Sunflowers look pretty good, in my opinion. I proudly displayed our cupcakes, only to watch them sit unwanted. The folks who made the chocolate ones had theirs disappear first, then the vanilla ones went. But our yellow frosted Magnolia butter cream cupcakes were the very last to go.

Now, I don't know about scientific studies, but I can tell you this. If you want to sell cupcakes, avoid vibrant yellow.

But, I'm pleased to say we sold out of all our baked goods (even the cupcakes) and raised $175. We also met several folks who seemed to be interested in visiting the church. It was really funny to watch kids invite people to church. Their reasons why our church was fun included a) the donuts b) the children's sermon and c) the potential of fixing up the basement with couches and a TV.

Hey, at least they mentioned the children's sermon.