Chocolate SHEET CAKE

Discover your new favourite chocolate cake, perfect for birthday parties or bake sales

This American-style traybake is super-easy to make, can be prepared in advance and cuts into even portions. Decorate it however you like: top with a choice of sweets and nuts, scatter over chocolate shavings and colourful sprinkles, or use chocolate buttons to spell out a name.

SERVES 10 PREP 15 mins COOK 30 mins EASY V ❄ un-iced only

For the chocolate sponge 185ml vegetable oil, plus extra for the tin

250g plain flour

80g cocoa powder

21/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda 325g light brown soft sugar 250ml buttermilk

125ml strong coffee or espresso, (can be warm, but not hot)

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 large eggs

For the icing

150g salted butter, softened 200g icing sugar

4 tbsp cocoa powder

2 tbsp milk sweets, sprinkles, chocolate shavings or nuts, to decorate

1 Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Oil and line the base and sides of a 33cm x 23cm roasting tin or cake tin with a lip of at least 21/2 cm. Combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, bicarb, sugar and a good pinch of salt in a large bowl. Rub any lumps of sugar between your fingers, shaking the bowl a few times to bring them to the surface. 2 Whisk the oil, buttermilk, coffee, vanilla and eggs in a jug, then pour the wet ingredients into the dry. Use a spatula to stir well, removing any pockets of flour. Pour the mixture into the lined tin and bake for 25-30 mins until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. If any wet cake mixture clings to the skewer, return the cake to the oven for 5 mins, then check again. Once cooked, remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin for at least 20 mins.

3 Meanwhile, make the icing. Melt the butter in a saucepan, then remove from the heat and stir in the icing sugar, cocoa powder and milk. The icing will be very runny but will thicken a little as it cools (if the icing has set too much before the cake has cooled, reheat it slightly to make it easier to pour).

4 Pour the icing over the cake and leave to set. Decorate with the sweets, sprinkles, chocolate shavings or nuts, then cut into squares and dig in.

PER SERVING 330 kcals • fat 18g • saturates 6g • carbs 37g • sugars 26g • fibre 2g • protein 4g • salt 0.5g