School Cake!
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A delicious and simple vanilla school cake with icing and sprinkles – the classic easy bake for everyone.
YES THAT IS RIGHT… THE RECIPE IS FINALLY HERE! School cake!! This, again is one of the most highly requested recipes to go on to my blog, and I thought it was about time… just in time for school starting again this year!
This cake is iconic – and one of the cakes that no matter how ‘plain’ it is – I will ALWAYS want to eat it. There is just something about it. It’s sweet, but delightful. If you haven’t heard of it… you must try school cake now!
Sponge
School cake, for those who don’t know… is a really very simple recipe. It’s a vanilla sponge cake, topped with water icing and sprinkles. It really is that simple. If you include the water as an ingredient for the icing, it is eight ingredients, but I don’t think thats too bad.
The cake is light and moist (if I can use that word…) with the vanilla flavour. You simply have to make a basic cake sponge. Theres something about the vanilla sponge and sprinkles together that tastes DELICIOUS however, if you wanted a chocolate version – follow this recipe here.
- Butter – for the sponge mix, you can use a block butter at room temperature, or a baking spread – both work well
- Sugar – I use caster sugar as it’s a basic cake mix, and you want the classic flavour from the sugar
- Eggs – the best method is to weigh the eggs in their shells. You want to get the weight to as close to 400g as possible, and then ideally match the sugar, flour and butter to match this weight for the best bake
- Flour – self raising flour is the best and classic. You can make your own by mixing in 2 level tsps of baking powder per 150g of plain flour, and mixing in before using
- Vanilla – this is optional, but I love the flavour it gives
Egg weighing method
So as mentioned above in the sponge section, weighing eggs is a useful method for cakes like this. I have listed 7-8 eggs, as eggs can vary in weight. I typically use medium eggs in the UK when baking, and these general range in size so they’re not always identical. I often buy mixed weight boxes as well so these can vary from 43-73g usually.
The best tip, is to weigh your eggs in the shells, to get as close to 400g as possible. Say the eggs weigh 411g, you then need to use 411g butter, sugar and self raising flour. The equal ratios create the perfect simple sponge that will bake wonderfully and it’s very hard to get wrong! The vanilla extract is optional, but I LOVE it.
Making the cake
To get the perfect bake, you really need to make sure you mix the ingredients properly. I use my stand mixer, but an electric hand mixer works, or even a bowl and spoon. Make sure if you use unsalted block butter that it’s at room temp, but baking spread can be fridge cold.
Beat the butter and sugar together until creamed, light and fluffy. It’s important to make sure you do this first in my eyes, compared to the all in one method, as it’ll make sure you don’t have any butter lumps. I then add in all the eggs, self raising flour and vanilla and mix again. If mixing with a bowl and spoon, you may want to add these a smidge slower so you don’t get in a complete mess, but otherwise mix until you see it’s combined and stop mixing.
Traybake tin and baking
I use a 9×13″ traybake tin to make this school cake, as I use it for all my traybake cakes. I love my chocolate traybake cake, my gin and tonic traybake cake and so on… but this one?! This school cake may be my favourite of all my traybake cakes.
If you aren’t sure on your oven, I always recommend using an oven thermometer so it bakes correctly! An oven I once had to use was 50ºc out! Absolutely awful for baking. After your oven is correctly heated, you want to bake the cake until a skewer comes out clean, and its not making a bubbling/crackling sound when you listen carefully.
If you cake sinks after coming out the oven, it needed longer baking. It really is that simple! It’s still going to be edible, so don’t be disheartened. Baking is all about learning the science behind it.
Decoration
Once the school cake is cooled, you can make the icing. It really is as simple as mixing water into the icing sugar, pouring it over the cake evenly, and sprinkling on some sprinkles! It’s as simple as it can get. I use these sprinkles as they are beautiful, bright and fun! They are 1000% bake stable and UK legal.
I use a basic icing sugar and water mixture for my icing, and it’s so simple. Add a little water at a time, and give it a really really good mix before adding more as you don’t want to make it too thin. Some people like to use milk in the icing, but this does mean the cake needs to be stored in the fridge as the milk is a fresh product, and this will dry the cake out, so water is best.
The most painful part is waiting for the icing to set a bit so it doesn’t pour everywhere – but it is worth it! This school cake is one of the best bakes ever, and I really hope you love it.
Making a smaller version
This tin is obviously quite large and I love making the traybake sized version as I would personally call it the ‘classic’, however I know not all of you want to make a cake that big.
So to make a smaller 9″ square version, you need to use: 250g unsalted butter, 250g caster sugar, 250g self raising flour, 5 medium eggs and a dash of vanilla extract. Bake into a lined 9″ square tin for around 35 minutes. Leave to cool fully, and then decorate. For the decoration on a smaller cake, I would use about 350g of icing sugar and 3-4tbsp of water for the icing.
Tips & Tricks
- I use these sprinkles in my decoration
- I use this cake tin for my traybake tins
- This cake will last 3-4+ days at room temperature
- This can freeze for 3+ months
School Cake!
Ingredients
Cake
- 400 g unsalted butter
- 400 g caster sugar
- 7-8 medium eggs
- 400 g self raising flour
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Icing
- 500 g icing sugar
- 4-5 tbsp water
Sprinkles
- Rainbow sprinkles
Instructions
For the Cake
- Preheat your oven to 180ºC/160ºC fan and line a 9x13" traybake tin with parchment paper.
- Beat together your butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add in the eggs, self raising flour, and vanilla extract and beat again until combined well.
- Pour into the tin and bake in the oven for 45-50 minutes, or until baked through.
- Once baked, let the cake cool fully in the tin.
For the Icing
- Add the icing sugar to a medium sized bowl, and gradually add the water, mixing well each time, until a thick icing paste is made.
- Carefully spread the icing over the cake evenly.
Sprinkles
- Sprinkle over your favourite rainbow sprinkles!
- Leave the icing to set for about an hour, and enjoy.
Notes
- I recommend using a 9x13" traybake tin for this recipe.
- This cake will last for 3-4 days once made.
- For a 9" square tin - I would recommend a 5 egg/250g sugar/butter/flour mixture. Baked for 35 minute - see more notes in the post
- You can use any sprinkles you like, but I use these sprinkles!
ENJOY!
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J x
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Love this recipe – a beautiful classic sponge.
I used the calculator to adjust the ingredient list by half, to make a smaller cake for 6 people. The mixture turned out be rather too stiff but I corrected this by adding enough whole milk to turn it to a soft dropping consistency before I put in the the tin and it turned out beautifully. Also I used a 9 x 11″ tin, rather that 9 x 13″ and that seemed to be just right for the for the smaller cake size. I didn’t have any icing sugar so I made a butter icing with caster sugar, butter and milk and added chocolate and sugar sprinkles. However there are so many options for this recipe. I can see it being great as a cherry cake recipe for example, or used as it is for a sherry trifle. Or I might try it with crystallised ginger. or with a caramel icing.
I’ve added it to my special recipe notebook which holds all my tried, tested and loved recipes. I’ve already added Jane’s other traybake recipe for Gingerbread Traybake Cake, which is gorgeous.
Thank you Jane.
Could I make these as cupcakes? Xx
This was super easy to make, I decide to add lemon zest and juice instead of vanilla and it turned out great. The sponge is light and fluffy, and the icing has a great consistency. I’ll definitely be making again 😊
Hi can you freeze an old school cake with icing on it ?
I have frozen this lots of times. The sprinkles fade but still tastes great
Hiya, would this work well to turn it into a traybake birthday cake using buttercream as the topping? Or do you have any suggestions as to how to make this work?
Thanks 😊
Is this deep enough to cut in two and fill?
I would say yes, but it will be a delicate job – you’d need to chill the cake well so it doesn’t fall apart, and preferably use a cake leveller x
If I use plain flour how much baking powder would I need please?
Hiya! The general rule is 2 level tsps per 150g of plain flour, whisked in before using x
Hi, is it a misprint where it says it serves 12 people (same in the book). It’s enormous and I’ve noticed that some of your cakes with less flour etc serve 12 people, seems a bit inconsistent ?
Serving sizes are personal to everyone – it’s not a misprint, but you can cut smaller sizes if you fancy. x
Hi Jane!
Could you make half of this recipe and half of the chocolate school cake recipe and then put them together to make a marble tray bake?
For sure!!
Hi Jane, would it be possible to make this a lemon sponge and what would I need to add? Thank you!
Hiya! Lemon Extract should be fine, hope this helps! x
Hey. Was just wondering what the difference is between using unsalted butter and baking butter please. Would it matter if I switched it to baking butter instead please?
Hiya! No, that would be fine! Enjoy! x
Hi Jane I am going to be making this cake as a 2 layer cake made to look like a rugby pitch. How much buttercream do you think I would need to cover it? Thanks.
Can you do this for an 8 inch square tin like the brownie recipe ones? Would this effect quantities of ingredients,
Can I put them in the fridge as the icing sugar have not Hard after 1 hour at room temperature .So I put 4 hours in the fridge n still soft. How I fix it. Will theh get hard 12 hours in fridge as many said don’t put in fridge but room temperature.
Hiya! Water icing doesn’t really harden completely. Hope this helps x
Hello
What ingredient amounts would you recommend if I used an 8 inch tin?
Please could you give me suggestions of how to make a small batch of this! Ideally portions for 2-4.
Hi hun! Hw many large eggs could I use x