Bake Off Recipe: Prue Leith’s School Cake

Last night’s episode of The Great British Bake Off featured a brand-new theme: school week. This included a series of childhood bakes, kicking off with a flapjack for the signature challenge, which saw the contestants experimenting with new takes on the oaty treat. But the real nostalgia came in the technical challenge, where Prue Leith tasked bakers with recreating the old-school, vanilla sponge cakes often served in school dinners – AKA, the school cake. 

This proved surprisingly tricky: the bakers were required to make their own sprinkles, and ensuring the custard didn’t curdle was no mean feat. But Jessica managed to impress the judges, who secured star baker for the second week in a row. Below, we share the recipe so you can have a go at home.

What Is School Cake?

It’s not necessarily an official term, but anyone who attended a British primary school will likely be familiar with school cake: a simple vanilla sponge traybake topped with colourful hundreds and thousands. The old-fashioned treat is covered in white icing and often served with custard. 

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Bake Off Episode 4: Prue Leith’s School Cake & Custard Recipe

Ingredients:

For the sponge

• 400g unsalted butter
• 400g caster sugar
• 6 large eggs
• 400g plain flour
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract

For the royal icing sprinkles

• 70g egg white
• 400g icing sugar, sifted
• Red food colouring paste
• Yellow food colouring paste
• Blue food colouring paste
• Pink food colouring paste
• Green food colouring paste

For the icing

• 500g icing sugar, sifted
• 4 – 5 tbsp water
• For the custard
• 600ml whole milk
• 4 egg yolks
• 15g cornflour
• 100g caster sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Equipment

23cm x 30cm traybake tin

Method:

1. For the sponge, preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan/350°F/Gas 4. Grease and line a 23cm x 30cm traybake tin with butter and non-stick baking paper.
2. Place the butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl and beat with a wooden spoon (or electric mixer) until pale and fluffy.
3. Add the eggs one a time, beating well between each addition until fully incorporated and taking care not to curdle the mixture.
4. Fold in the flour, then stir in the vanilla extract and mix to a smooth batter. Do not overmix. Scrape the batter into the tin and level with a palette knife.
5. Bake for 45 – 50 minutes, until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean and the sponge is coming away from the sides of the tin.
6. Remove from the oven and leave the oven door open. Leave the sponge to cool in the tin for 10 minutes then transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool completely.
7. For the sprinkles, whisk the egg white in a bowl until fluffy then whisk in the icing sugar to a stiff dropping/piping consistency.
8. Divide the icing between five bowls and colour each bowl a different colour, until you have one pink, one yellow, one blue, one green and one red.
9. Line two baking sheets with non-stick baking paper, then make five piping bags out of baking paper.
10. Working with one colour of icing at a time, spoon the icing into a piping bag and snip the end to a small point. Pipe around 15 straight lines of icing on the baking sheet, then leave to dry. Repeat with the remaining four colours of icing until you have multiple lines of coloured icing covering the baking sheets.
11. Place the baking sheets in the oven with the door open and leave to set in the residual heat of the oven. Be careful the oven isn’t too hot when you put the baking sheets in, as you want the icing to set, not brown.
12. Once the icing is dry, use a sharp knife or craft knife to cut into sprinkles.
13. For the icing, sieve the icing sugar into a bowl, add three tablespoons of water and mix with a balloon whisk, adding more water, one teaspoon at a time until you reach a thick coating consistency.
14. Spoon the icing over the cooled sponge and level with a palette knife, then sprinkle over the coloured sprinkles.
15. For the custard, warm the milk in a pan until just starting to bubble around the edge, then remove from the heat. Place the egg yolks, cornflour, sugar and vanilla in a bowl and whisk together until combined. Pour over the hot milk, whisking continuously, then return the mixture to the pan and cook over a medium heat, whisking continuously until the custard thickens.
16. Cut the cake into 16 pieces, then serve with the custard.

Recipe from thegreatbritishbakeoff.co.uk