"Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man", "Pat-a-Cake", "Patty-cake" or "Pattycake" is an English nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 6486.^[1]

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man.

Roll it, pat it, and mark it with a B

Put it in the oven for Baby and me.^[2]

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.^[2]

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 without an oven of their own could take 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.^[3]

The earliest version set to music appears in James Hook's "A Christmas Box" (1796).^[4]

The rhyme often accompanies a clapping game between two people. It alternates between a normal individual clap by one person 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.^[2]

The "pat-a-cake" song and clapping game was used by Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in their series of "Road to" films. The gag worked by means of adding a synchronised punch into the clapping game routine, allowing them to make their escape.^[5]

Patty-cake appears as a plot point in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit where it is made out to be the cartoon equivalent of sex.^[6]

• List of nursery rhymes