What Is a Sheet Cake?

I’m getting married next year, and one of the many, many things that you have to figure out when you’re having a wedding is what kind of cake you want. It used to be that you’d smush some cake into each other’s face or something, but that tradition has sort of fallen out of favor. So now, the cake is mostly there to look nice and provide an extra sugar boost when you’re tired of dancing.

There are extremely fancy options available, with all sorts of adornments. However, if you’re like me and my fiancé, you might not want to spend hundreds of dollars on a nice-looking baked good that’s going to be immediately gobbled up. So, we are likely to go with the simplest option: a sheet cake. 

But what is a sheet cake, exactly? What size is it? And what of the variety known as a Texas sheet cake? Let’s cut into some answers. 

What is a sheet cake?

A staple of birthday parties, corporate events, and, basically, anywhere you’re feeding a lot of people dessert, sheet cake is a ubiquitous treat. It’s baked in a flat, rectangular baking pan and the resulting cake is usually between two to three inches thick. It’s long and wide like a sheet—hence the name. 

A sheet cake can be vanilla or chocolate flavored, but there are many other varieties (pistachio cake is a family favorite of my fiancé’s). It is almost always frosted, and there might be some candles or other doodads placed on the top. 

What size is a full sheet cake? 

A full size sheet cake is 18 by 24 inches. It is estimated that a cake this size should serve around 70 to 80 people, unless they really, really like cake, in which case it might be fewer. 

What is Texas sheet cake?

Texas Sheet Cake is a form of sheet cake popular in the South. It is a chocolate cake made with Dr Pepper (or an equivalent soda) mixed into the batter for added flavor. The frosting is a rich, fudgy chocolate, and it’s topped with pecans, a Lonestar State favorite. 

Texas Sheet Cake has also taken on another special significance: It is a staple at funerals and wakes in the South. Indeed, this cake is so associated with mourning that it is often dubbed Texas Funeral Cake. 

Why is it called Texas sheet cake?

There are two schools of thought about this. The first is that the original recipe for this type of cake appeared in a Texas magazine or newspaper. Southern Living notes that there was a reference to a large chocolate cake published in Galveston Daily News back in 1936 and another in a 1957 Dallas newspaper with a recipe for “German’s Chocolate Cake.” It should be noted, though, that similar recipes were appearing in other publications around the South at the same time. 

The second school of thought is that it’s called a Texas Sheet Cake because the recipe will yield a product “as big as Texas.” I swear, this is what they say. Texas certainly is large and associated with largeness, so this sort of makes sense to me, but I’ll admit I’m a little skeptical about this origin story.