One of my strongest memories of my days at secondary school, alongside teachers and lessons of course, was the food from the school canteen. I made pretty poor food choices when I was younger although it clearly didn’t do me any harm. In fact I don’t remember there much being many healthy choices, certainly not like the secondary school I work in today. I’ve been thinking a lot about secondary schools recently as my son just found out which school he will be going to in September. It made me nostalgic for the classic school dinner cake I enjoyed at my own school and I thought I would recreate it for my own children.

School dinner cake ingredients:

200g butter

200g caster sugar

4 eggs

200g self raising flour

50ml milk

vanilla extract

200g icing sugar

sprinkles

School dinner cake recipe

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C. Line your cake tin and set aside.

Add the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl and beat by hand until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, milk and a few drops of vanilla essence. Beat the mixture until the cake batter is smooth.

Pour the batter into your cake tin and bake for 40-45 minutes (until you can insert a skewer and it comes out clean). Leave to cool on a wire rack.

Whilst the cake is cooling down prepare the icing. Mix the icing sugar with a little water but make sure the icing is thick rather than runny. When the cake is cool enough, spread the icing over the top of the cake. Cover with a lot of sprinkles and set aside for an hour to set.

Cut into squares and enjoy the taste of a classic school dinner cake.