Pat-a-cake

"Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man"
Roud #6486
William Wallace Denslow illustrations for Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man, from a 1901 edition of Mother Goose
Song
Written	England
Published	1698
Form	Nursery rhyme
Writer(s)	Traditional
Language	English

"Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man", "Pat-a-cake", "patty-cake" or "pattycake" is one of the oldest and most widely known surviving English nursery rhymes. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 6486.

The earliest recorded version of the rhyme appears in Thomas D'Urfey's play The Campaigners from 1698, where a nurse says to her charges:

...and pat a cake Bakers man, so I will master as I can, and prick it, and prick it, and prick it, and prick it, and prick it, and throw't into the Oven.

The next appearance is in Mother Goose's Melody, (c. 1765), in the form:

Marking pastry or baked goods with an identifiable mark may stem from a time when households that did not own an oven of their own could have brought their items to a local baker or bake house, paying to have their items finished for a small fee. Marking the pastry would have been a way to ensure the return of the proper item.

The rhyme is often accompanied by hand-clapping between two people, a clapping game. It alternates between a normal individual clap with two-handed claps with the other person. The hands may be crossed as well. This allows for a possibly complex sequence of clapping that must be coordinated between the two. If told by a parent to a child, the "B" and "baby" in the last two lines are sometimes replaced by the child's first initial and first name.

A pat-a-cake serve is a serve in which the racket is not swung behind the head (as in a proper serve). It is often used by beginning players, or players who never had formal training. The term is considered pejorative.