School Cake!
*This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my disclosure for more details!*
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!
Find my other Recipes on my Recipes Page!
You can find me on:
Instagram
Facebook
Pinterest
Twitter
Youtube
J x
© Jane’s Patisserie. All images & content are copyright protected. Do not use my images without prior permission. If you want to republish this recipe, please re-write the recipe in your own words and credit me, or link back to this post for the recipe.
Hi Jane, I just made this cake and it is dry….any thoughts on what I did wrong?
This means it has been over baked – ovens are variable, whether it’s type of oven such as gas/electric/fan, and often the temp isn’t quite what you think. It just means you need to bake for less time, or at a lower temp. Also, make sure not to store in the fridge or anything, as that will dry it out. x
Hello if I were to make this in an 8 inch tin. What amounts would you recommend for ingredients?
Hi Jane. You are my fav baker ever 😊 Iv got a tray 10×16 is this ok for your school cake or do I need to add more ingrediants. 😊 thank you Michelle
That’s considerably bigger so it will need increasing!
What quantities did u use for that tin please ?
would this recipe come out okay in a 20x30cm tin? I used the bbc goodfood recipe and it came out pretty much flat.. Not great 🙁
Yeah that should be fine, maybe a couple minutes extra time!
I’ve just made this and it taste a bit eggy. I weighed out the eggs and used the same amount of everything else and the texture is fine. Any suggestions?
Sometimes this is purely down to the eggs being off, or the mixture not being mixed enough so it hasn’t broken down the egg enough before baking – it’s not recipe related at all as this is a standard sponge mix and just unfortunate. x
Hi,
Could you use this receipe and then put into fairy cake cases?
Thank you
Hia. Do we use boiling water or cold water for the icing? Thank you.
Cold x
This School Cake recipe brings back such nostalgic memories, I love how you’ve recreated this classic, simple cake with its fluffy sponge and sweet icing topped with colorful sprinkles. The detailed instructions make it easy to follow, and I appreciate the tips for getting that perfect texture. This is the perfect treat for a trip down memory lane or to share with friends and family. Thank you for sharing this delightful recipe.
Hi Jane love your recipes and books! – would this cake hold having another layer added to it with butter cream in-between or am I asking for trouble and a collapse. Hoping to make two by doubling the ingredients and having a custard butter cream filling? Thanks in Advance.
That should be totally fine – it’ll be a super chunky cake but it will be fine with buttercream in the middle! Just make sure to chill the sponges slightly before moving about so that they are firmer x
Hiya, if the cake slightly sinks in the middle can you turn it upside down once cooled and ice the bottom of it instead
For sure!
this is a great classic recipe I have changed the vanilla to Lemon and lemon zest and used fresh lemon juice instead of water for the icing and this tasted great.
I made this cake with my Mum and the first time turned out so lovely, the last two times it burns on the side and soggy in the middle! We did nothing different, we were wondering if you could help. When it cooked fine it was absolutely gorgeous!
This sounds like there must be something different going on such as tin size change, or a different oven? The temperature of the oven sounds wrong if it’s burning but also raw xx
This was happening to me and I was using tesco stockwells flour. Switched flour and now works! Also would recommend stork instead of butter.
I’m making a number cake (13) for the first time. Would this recipe be suffice please?
Unsalted butter – Is this block of butter or can Stork be used? Thanks in advance xx
Either work!
Hi
I made this according to the recipe, 7 eggs and 400g of the other stuff but it turned out dense and not light and fluffy:(
How do I remake it better next time to make sure it comes out light please?
How did you mix it? Dense cakes if following the recipe is usually down to the mixing process x
This was happening to me and I was using tesco stockwells flour. Switched flour and now works! Also would recommend stork instead of butter.
Weigh the eggs as it says in the recipe I only needed 5 eggs.