I am looking for a simple sheetcakes recipe that is delicious, if anyone has one that just seems to get rave reviews i would love if you would share! this will be my first time doing a sheet cake but i need something to feed a big group so im going for it. Also i know this is probably a silly question but how does the cake get so flat across the top and down the sides? am i supposed to cut it that perfect? also any icing tips?

not a dumb question at all.. you will have to trim the cake to get the perect smoothness that you want. they make cake levelers, but honestly i think it is easier to level it with a good long serrated knife ( like a bread knife) hope this helps

I really like the white almond sourcream (WASC) recipe that's here on CC. Look for it in the recipes gallery.

As for the flat top - level that baby! The sides will depend on your cake pan. A generic pan will have slanted sides, a Wilton pan, fairly straight, a higher end should have very straight sides. If you want them perfectly strait, you could level them with a knife, although this may cause more problems than it solves.

When icing it, a large off-set spatula works well for the top (one person I know uses a metal ruler and just pulss it across the top evenly). Just pull from the sides toward the middle, like on a round cake. A bench scraper or clean paint scraper works great for the sides.

That's what I do, anyway!

welcome to cake central!

Just about any cake recipe works well for sheet cakes. if you want to go big, look for the white almond sour cream cake recipe (in the recipe section). i'm a cake mix girl so i usually use mixes and throw in a pudding mix and an extra egg.

when you're using a sheet pan you can use a flower nail (or 2 or 3 depending on the size of the pan) to evenly disperse the heat cooking the cake evenly. there are bake even strips you can also pin around the sides of the cake -i bought mine at michael's. these help with the hump in the middle you often get when baking. through the advise of another cc'er, i also learned that you can put a clean tea towel on the cake and press down the bump before you invert it then you don't have to trim. the sides and corners should end up pretty square for you unless your pan is more curved.

good luck!

Just one more thing, in case it wasn't clear - yes, you have to level it, but what really gives it the straight sides and top is the pan. As a previous poster said, the higher end pans have straighter sides. After you level it, flip it over - that's where your nice corners come from. This way you're not icing the cut portion - the top becomes the bottom. Does that make sense? I hope so.