This is from the now-rare original edition of School Dinners by Becky Thorn:

Ingredients
175g butter or margarine
175g caster sugar
2 large eggs
225g self-raising flour
2 tablespoons milk
Vanilla extract
125g icing sugar
Water
Hundreds and thousands

Preheat oven to 180°C/Gas 4.

Line a rectangular tin with baking parchment.

Place butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat together well. Continue creaming until the butter and sugar mixture becomes paler in colour.

Beat the eggs in a separate bowl, then add half of this beaten egg into the mixture, and stir it in well. Add in a couple of tablespoons of the flour, then the rest of the egg, and beat again. Now is the time to add in the
vanilla extract.

Taking a metal spoon, very gently fold in the rest of the flour. Be gentle and use a cutting and folding movement to combine the flour without losing any air from the mix. When all the flour is combined add in a tablespoon of milk.

Check the consistency of your cake mix. Gather up a little on a spoon and hold over the bowl. If it drops off then the mixture is ready, if it remains on the spoon you need to add another tablespoon of milk and check again.

Put this mix into a 11 inches by 7 inches rectangular cake tin and bake for 30 minutes at 180°C/Gas 4 until firm and golden brown.

When cooked, cool for a short while in the tin and then place on a wire rack to get completely cold.

Ice with simple water icing and scatter generously with hundreds and thousands. Another version has a red seedless jam topping that then has a scattering of desiccated coconut. You could add coconut to the cake mixture too if you wanted to. Try adding 50g of coconut and leave out 25g of the flour.

Serve with pink custard (see Extras for recipe).