I've been asked to make a cake for my niece's birthday party. As I wasn't sure what size sheet cake I needed to make for what my sister wants I went to the grocery to look at the sizes of sheet cakes.
It seems I need a 1/2 sheet cake but I haven't been able to find a definitive answer as to what size cake pan makes that through my searches on-line.
Does anyone have an answer to this?
In MY area of the country, a single layer half sheet is a 12x18 = 54 (2"x2") servings.
A single layer full sheet is 18x24 or 18x26 = 108 (2"x2") servings.
A single layer quarter sheet is 9x13 = 24 (2"x2") servings.
If you want more servings, make any cake 2 layers and double the servings (1"x2"x4")
I am quite sure you will get other opinions. This has been highly debated many times.
The whole sheet/half sheet/quarter sheet thing really has a total different meaning depending on who you ask.
I do a quarter sheet as a 9x13 and since I don't want to have a multitude of pans on hand, a half sheet for me is 2 9x13's put side by side decorated as 1 cake.....and a full sheet would be 4 of them, 2 on top and 2 on bottom.
But, everyone is so different, it really matters how many servings you want, etc.
The terms '1/2' OR '1/4' or other size all date back to midevile times (hehehe) when bakers didn't have special pans for baking cakes.....they just had those huge pans for baking bread etc. They are/were approx. 24x34x1deep. Large cakes were fine for big families b ut soon families shrunk and those hurge cakes didn't sell as good so someone thought to cut them in 1/2 == thus a 1/2 sheet was born. Then others cut the 1/2 in 1/2 and a 1/4 sheet was born. Then actual cake pans were made. Companies like Wilton make manydifferent sizes to fit the different sized ovens....tiny 'apartment' stoves needed a small cake pan, etc.
If you go back to those 1st pans you can easily see how the sizes came about.
If you match the pan size to what is sold as a 1/2 sheet board & box you will see a 12x16 cake fits on the board just enough to allow for bottom borders, while a 12x8 fits the 1/4 sheet board.
If you use anything bigger you have to go to the next size board or cut one to fit, then it won't fit in the cake box 
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