Quick and Easy Vanilla Sheet Cake
on Sep 18, 2015, Updated Aug 22, 2024
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Quick and Easy Vanilla Sheet Cake is a cake-mix recipe for when you’re short on time! Whether you’ve got a birthday to celebrate, or you’re just looking for a simple vanilla cake recipe, this dessert will not disappoint!
This cake. You guys. This vanilla sheet cake is so ridiculously easy, but it’s still super delicious. Plus, any food you can add sprinkles to (for example: donuts, ice cream, caramel apples) is going to be good.
This is another “cheater recipe,” because you start off with a box of cake mix, add some fool-proof homemade icing and a heavy hand of sprinkles, and you have yourself one perfectly semi-homemade dessert that takes about 20 minutes to throw together.
I love a good sheet cake. Try these delicious recipes too: Grandma Shoaf’s Quick and Easy Chocolate Sheet Cake, The Best Chocolate Buttercream Frosting and Pumpkin Sheet Cake with Caramel Frosting.
Table of Contents
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Year-Round Favorite: This vanilla sheet cake is easy to make and simple to customize for any occasion.
- Halloween Twist: For Halloween, add a few drops of orange food coloring to the icing along with Halloween-themed bat sprinkles for a festive touch.
- Christmas Variation: Keep the icing white for Christmas and sprinkle with red, green, and white decorative balls to capture the holiday spirit.
- Birthday Customization: Tailor the icing color to the birthday person’s favorite and let them choose their own sprinkles, making it a fun and personalized treat. My kids love taking charge of the sprinkles, making me feel like the world’s best mom.
Recipe Ingredients
For the Cake
- 1 box Betty Crocker cake mix (Yellow, White, White Butter Recipe, and Yellow Butter Recipe all work great)
- Ingredients called for on the back of the box
For the Icing
- Butter (no margarine here please!)
- Milk
- Powdered sugar
- Almond extract
- Vanilla extract
See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.
How Do I Make Vanilla Sheet Cake
Step #1. Make the cake batter according to the package directions and spread it evenly into a large greased, rimmed sheet cake pan.
Step #2. Bake until the cake is cooked through. You’ll start to smell the cake and the cake will spring back when touched lightly, 12 to 15 minutes.
Step #3. While the cake is cooking, in a small sauce pan heat the butter and milk over medium heat until the butter melts, stirring often. Remove from the heat.
Step #4. Add the powdered sugar to a large bowl and slowly whisk in the melted butter mixture into the powdered sugar. Add almond and vanilla extract. After letting the baked cake cool, drizzle and gently spread the icing to the edges with a spatula.
Recipe FAQs
Yes you can! Not only is this cake easy, it also travels great and can be made a day ahead of time. Always a good trait in a dessert during the holidays.
This particular sheet cake serves about 20.
The cake is done when it starts to pull away from the edges of the pan, it springs back when lightly touched, and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs.
Expert Tips
- Sift all dry ingredients, including flour and leavening agents, to aerate and integrate them fully for a smooth, evenly baked cake.
- Let the cake cool in its pan on a wire rack for the precise time needed to firm up but remain moist, ensuring it’s easy to remove without crumbling.
- Experiment with infusing your batter with different extracts like almond or lemon, or fold in citrus zest, spices like cinnamon, or even finely chopped nuts to personalize the flavor profile of your sheet cake.
- To ensure your sheet cake cooks evenly, spread the batter using an offset spatula or something similiar.This simple step helps achieve a level surface, preventing uneven baking and overcooked edges.
More Cake Recipes To Consider
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Quick and Easy Vanilla Sheet Cake
Ingredients
- For the Cake
- 1 box Betty Crocker cake mix, Yellow, White, White Butter Recipe, and Yellow Butter Recipe all work great
- Ingredients called for on the back of the box
- For the Icing
- 1/2 cup butter, no margarine here please!
- 1/4 cup milk
- 4 to 4 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Make the cake batter according to the package directions and spread it evenly into a large greased, rimmed sheet cake pan (also called a Jelly Roll pan, should measure about 17 1/2 inches by 13 inches). Bake until the cake is cooked through. You’ll start to smell the cake and the cake will spring back when touched lightly, 12 to 15 minutes.
- While the cake is cooking, in a small sauce pan heat the butter and milk over medium heat until the butter melts, stirring often. Remove from the heat. Add the powdered sugar to a large bowl (you can also use a stand mixer here) and slowly whisk in the melted butter mixture into the powdered sugar. Stir until well combined and no lumps remain. Add the almond and vanilla extract and stir to combine.
- While the cake is still warm (let it sit for maybe 5-7 minutes, you want it hot but not pipping hot), drizzle the icing over the warm cake and then use a spatula to spread it to the edges. If you try to spread too much or go over the same place again and again you are going to pull up the top off the cake and get crumbs in your icing. The goal is to quickly spread it out and move on… too much fussing will just make a mess.
- Add the sprinkles while the icing is still warm. The sprinkles will also cover any messes you made if you tried to spread the icing too much.
- The cake is great warm, at room temperature, and even the next day. No need to refrigerate over night, sugar is an excellent preservative. I have a plastic lid that fits my sheet cake pan and makes traveling a breeze. I highly recommend a lid for your pan.
I’m trying to make 40 servings for my local soup kitchen so sheet pan cakes make sense. The soup kitchen is ‘take out’ only due to Covid so an easily transportable cake piece is best. Also, I like a generous serving… if I’ve provided too much they can save half for the next day. The cake mix boxes say 10 servings so i would normally buy 4 boxes (or maybe even a 5th to make sure I’ve got plenty). But this recipe says to use just one mix box for a 13 x 17 pan. Isn’t that going to make a very short cake? Couldn’t I put 2 or even 3 mixes in one pan? Also the cake box says it makes 10 servings, this recipe says 20. What to do ?
Yes, it’s a very short cake and when you cut a pan that large you have a lot of flexibility on the number of servings depending on the size you’d like to cute the cake. You can’t fit any more boxes of cake mix on this kind of pan though because it will over flow.
Do I absolutely have to add the almond extract? will the recipe work without it?
I’m just trying to work with what I have in my house at the moment and I don’t have almond extract.
It’ll work great, just replace it with vanilla extract!
I cook for the homeless shelter twice a month. this worked so well! Thank you! Maybe next time I’ll swirl chocolate and vanilla for a marble cake.
That’s so cool Beth! Here’s my chocolate sheet cake recipe (super easy), might be a good place to start! https://www.blessthismessplease.com/grandma-shoafs-quick-and-easy-chocolate-sheet-cake/
I love the addition of almond extract in the icing 🙂
Yummy! You have great ideas. Making this for my relief society sisters as a treat on Sunday. Thanks!