A clapping rhyme built for hands rather than ears alone. Pat on "pat-a-cake," prick on "prick it," then trace a letter on "mark it with T" and swap in your own child's initial, which turns a very old rhyme into something addressed directly to them.
A clapping chant: clap it out on the baby's hands.
From Mother Goose / Nursery Rhymes (traditional). See the whole collection.
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 it's usually said today
Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man,
Bake me a cake as fast as you can;
Pat it and prick it and mark it with B,
Put it in the oven for baby and me!
Traditional rhymes have no single fixed text. The main version on this page is as printed in our source edition; this one is the wording most people say today.
About this poem
Recorded in a 1698 play
Pat-a-cake is one of the oldest nursery rhymes we can put a date to. It turns up in a stage play from 1698, Thomas D'Urfey's The Campaigners, already written down almost the way we say it now, which means it was well known even then. The T in 'mark it with T' is simply the first letter of the child's name, Tommy, so it was always meant to be personalised.
Swap the letter and the name for your own child's, so it is their cake going in the oven. It suits a baby on your lap who cannot do much yet, because you move their hands for them. The 'prick it' and 'mark it' lines are a chance for a gentle tickle or a fingertip drawn across the palm.
Public domain. Text from The Real Mother Goose (Blanche Fisher Wright, 1916), via Project Gutenberg. View the source edition