I Hope This Will Help If You Struggle Scaling Up Recipes :)

Decorating By Crazy-Gray Updated 27 May 2014 , 9:49am by jadepearl

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Crazy-Gray Posted 15 May 2012 , 2:21pm
post #1 of 10

About a year after I started baking seriously I wanted to move on to bigger or different shaped pans but really struggled to work out how to scale up recipes, I spent hours googling recipes for certain pan sizes but they always turned out to be different heights.
I had a recipe I knew inside-out, I knew exactly how tall it would be in my usual pan at a certain temperature so I tried this method and it works perfectly for me for any size pan, even novelty pans.
Ive attached a simple spreadsheet but I shall endeavour to explain it here too:

Measure the height of the tin you know works perfectly
Fill it to the brim with water (or if its a lose bottom line it with a bag and fill with flour)
Record the weight or volume of water/flour it takes to fill the pan
Write this number down, for example it takes 1000ml to fill my usual 3 tall pan.

Now say I want to use the same recipe in a much bigger 3 tall pan; it takes 2800ml or water to fill to the brim, so to work out how much I need to scale up my ingredients I divide the new pan size by my usual pan size (2800 divided by 1000) = 2.8
So I need 2.8 times more of each ingredient
The attached spreadsheet will do this for you icon_smile.gif

Tips;
I find it works better if you scale up this way in single layers rather than a full 3-4 inch deep cake you intend to slice as you need to reduce the oven temperature a lot more with full cake recipes.

Each time you measure the volume of a new pan write it down, that way you dont have to do it again and again!

For novelty pans you clearly cant make them in layers plus they arent a uniform depth so estimate a depth in between the very highest point and the very lowest and keep your estimate on the deeper side as you can always trim but you cant add to a baked cake!

if your pans are different height you may need to take account of this- the spreadsheet attached will do this for you but don't scale up to a 2 inch tall pan if your original recipe makes your cake 3inches tall- divide your original recipe in 3 and make three seperate 1inch layers in your new pan!

This also works for the amount of filling youll need to use (I do find it overestimates filling slightly though)

If I think of any more tips Ill add them to the post icon_smile.gif

Hope it helps someone!

9 replies
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tigachu Posted 15 May 2012 , 5:34pm
post #2 of 10

Thank you for taking the time to do this icon_smile.gif

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vgcea Posted 15 May 2012 , 5:48pm
post #3 of 10

Thank you so much for this chart. It's obvious you put quite a bit of time into this. It's nice of you to share it.

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Peanut66 Posted 7 Apr 2013 , 1:22pm
post #4 of 10
Quote:
Originally Posted by Crazy-Gray 


Ive attached a simple spreadsheet but I shall endeavour to explain it here too:
 

 Hi

It may e just me but i cant see the spreadsheet! can you help please/

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kazita Posted 7 Apr 2013 , 1:45pm
post #5 of 10

ANo I can't see the spread sheet either.

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yortma Posted 7 Apr 2013 , 2:59pm
post #6 of 10

Measuring with water is a great idea, especially for those irregular wilton character pans, and odd shapes like petal pans.  For rounds, squares and rectangles, it is also easy to figure out the ratios with some basic math.  This also helps if you don't know how many cups of batter your recipe makes.  You just need to know what pan size it fills.  

 

(All of the areas given are in square inches)

 

SQUARE pan  (area of a square is one side times one side).

 

8"           64  

9"           81

10 "        100   

12"         144

 

RECTANGLE  (short side times long side)

 

9 x 12      108   

11 x 15    165  

 

ROUNDS   (Pi times the radius squared - 3.14 times half the diameter squared).

 

6"            28.25   

8"            50.25  

9"            63.5  

10"          78.5  

12"          113  

 

 

For 2 layers of each size

 

2 6"         56.5

2 8"         100.5

2 9"         127

2 10"       157

2 12"       226

 

 

for example, If your favorite recipe fills 2 9" pans, then it is filling 2 x 63.5 which is 127 square inches.     (the true volume is area times height, but if you want the new size cake to be the same height, you can ignore the height and  just look at the difference in areas). if you want to fill a 12 " pan for example,  the ratio of the  2 9"  to the 12" is 127/113.  So your 9"  recipe will fill one 12" layer very nicely- with the layer being slightly higher, or a little left over.

 

Or if you double your regular 9" recipe (which would fill 256 inches square),  you could do 2 10" (157) and 2 8" inch (100.5).  If you want the layers to be taller or shorter, then adjust accordingly

 

I just keep a chart with the areas handy, and it is easy to add up areas and see how much to increase or decrease my recipe for the sizes needed.  HTH!

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Peanut66 Posted 8 Apr 2013 , 8:57pm
post #7 of 10

thanks it does

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peilinl Posted 9 Apr 2013 , 3:44am
post #8 of 10

What you did is so wonderful. I love the cake central community. It is not competitive and everyone is so generous in sharing their knowledge and tips! Thank you for sharing your spreadsheet!

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Crazy-Gray Posted 21 Aug 2013 , 9:12am
post #9 of 10

Did any of you guys save a copy of the excel sheet? It doesnt seem to be linked to the forum any more and I've lost my copy :-(

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jadepearl Posted 27 May 2014 , 9:49am
post #10 of 10

Aww..can't find the excel sheet anymore.  Does anyone has a copy please?


Thank you!!!

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