Food hygiene guidance for volunteer bakers
Practical guidance for baking safely at home for Free Cakes for Kids Lewisham & Crystal Palace. This is a plain-English summary, not legal advice. The official source for UK food hygiene and allergen law is the Food Standards Agency.
Before you bake
- Bake in a clean kitchen: wash your hands and wipe down surfaces before you start.
- Use fresh ingredients within their use-by date.
- Keep raw ingredients (like eggs) away from anything already cooked or ready to eat.
- Wash and dry any tins, tools or decorations before use.
Allergens
UK law recognises 14 major allergens that must always be flagged to whoever is eating the food. When you bake, check the referral partner's brief for any allergy or dietary information given for the child, and always be able to say clearly what's in your cake. The 14 allergens are:
- Celery
- Cereals containing gluten (wheat, rye, barley, oats)
- Crustaceans
- Eggs
- Fish
- Lupin
- Milk
- Molluscs
- Mustard
- Tree nuts
- Peanuts
- Sesame seeds
- Soybeans
- Sulphur dioxide and sulphites
Full guidance is available from the Food Standards Agency on allergen guidance for food businesses and allergen information and labelling.
Halal by default
Please bake all cakes to be halal by default, unless a referral brief tells you otherwise. In practice, this mainly means checking a few common ingredients:
- Gelatine: many jellies, marshmallows, gummy sweets and some cake decorations contain gelatine made from pork or non-halal meat. Use a vegetarian alternative such as agar agar, or halal-certified gelatine, instead.
- Alcohol: some vanilla extracts, flavourings and liqueur-soaked fruit contain alcohol. Choose alcohol-free extracts and flavourings.
- Animal fats: use butter or vegetable shortening rather than lard or other non-halal animal fats.
If you're ever unsure about an ingredient, a simple swap is usually available. Just ask if you'd like a suggestion.
Packaging and labelling
- Deliver your cake in a food-safe box.
- Write a short description of the cake and any allergens it contains on the outside of the box, so the referral partner can pass this on safely.
- Don't include any personal details about the child on the packaging.
Delivery
- Keep the cake covered and at a safe, cool temperature while transporting it.
- Deliver to the agreed location at the agreed time.
- Hand the cake directly to your referral partner contact, not to the child or family.
Getting trained
No formal food hygiene certificate is required to start baking with us, but we'd encourage every volunteer to build their knowledge. Highfield Qualifications, a UK awarding body regulated by Ofqual, offers a free Food Hygiene Essentials course online with a certificate on completion. If you'd like a fuller Level 2 qualification, Highfield's Food Safety Level 2 course is also available.
If you ever plan to sell cakes commercially (rather than donate them, as with Free Cakes for Kids), you would need to register as a food business with your local council. See gov.uk guidance on food business registration.