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Clapping

Pat-a-Cake

Good for:
Baby, Toddler
Tune:
None: say it in a sing-song voice

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, Baker’s man! So I do, master, As fast as I can.

Pat it, and prick it, And mark it with T, Put it in the oven For Tommy and me.

How to play

  1. “Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man!” Clap your hands in time. With a young baby, hold their hands and clap them together gently.
  2. “So I do, master, as fast as I can.” Clap a little faster.
  3. “Pat it, and prick it,” Pat your baby’s palm or tummy, then give it a gentle poke with one finger.
  4. “And mark it with T,” Draw a letter on their palm or tummy with your finger. Use the first letter of your baby’s name.
  5. “Put it in the oven” Slide your hands forward, as if pushing a tray into the oven.
  6. “For Tommy and me.” Say your baby’s name instead of Tommy, and point to them, then to you. Or finish with a cuddle.

Where it comes from

The earliest version we know of is in a play, Thomas D’Urfey’s The Campaigners (1698), where a nurse says it to the children in her care. By about 1765, in Mother Goose’s Melody, the cake was being patted, pricked and marked with a letter, much as it is here.

Why mark it? One idea is that it comes from a time when many homes had no oven, and families took their baking to the local baker. A mark on the dough meant they got their own cake back.

These words come from The Real Mother Goose (1916). Today most people ask the baker to bake the cake, and finish with the baby’s name. Say whichever version you know.

Old words

  • baker’s man: the baker’s helper. In this version he answers, “So I do, master”: he’s already baking as fast as he can.
  • prick it: poke little holes in it, as you might in pastry, to let the steam out.

Tips

  • Older babies may want to clap along. Slow it down so they can keep up.
  • Toddlers can play it facing you, clapping their own hands, then both of yours.
  • No time for the whole rhyme? The first two lines and a clap on “man!” make a game on their own.

Where these words come from

Public domain. A traditional English rhyme, first written down in 1698. Text from The Real Mother Goose, illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1916), as transcribed by Project Gutenberg (eBook #10607). Original source

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