Scaling cake recipes up and down

Mrs_B

rachbc wrote: »

Hi all - anyone got a foolproof way of working out how much cake mix is neded for larger tins? I need to make a large round cake 18" or so and want to work out how many ingredients I need and how long it will take to bake?

Thanks

18 inches. :eek:

There are ways of calculating quantities - can I ask what sort of cake you are making, and what size tin is used in the recipe you going to bake - that will help to suggest how to scale up the quantities.

rachbc

yeah ts massive isn't it - I'm not even sure its practical - might have to go back to the drawing board...I want a sponge rather than fruit cake - probably a maderia type cake as its being carved into a shape so needs to be sturdy!

Found some info online about scaling up to 14" but thats all!

JillS_2

rachbc wrote: »

Hi all - anyone got a foolproof way of working out how much cake mix is neded for larger tins? I need to make a large round cake 18" or so and want to work out how many ingredients I need and how long it will take to bake?

Thanks

I do loads of scaling - mostly down because I'm just cooking for myself and there's no way I want to make a 10" flan for example and sometimes I scale because I haven't got a tin the right size and sometimes because I want to cook a round-tin recipe in a square tin or vice versa.

I base it all on the area of tin and to make things quicker I have written a list of round tin sizes and approximate areas in the front of my kitchen book so I don't need to work it out every time. I've found that most recipes are pretty forgiving - you don't need to be exact to the last decimal place.

I sometimes base my decision of what size tin to use on ease of halving or quartering or 'thirding' the ingredients - for instance if the recipe uses 3 eggs I don't really want to mess about with 1.5 eggs so I'll go for a 1--egg or 2-egg version and look for the tin that's a third or two thirds the area of the recipe tin.

Here's my list of tin sizes and areas. The first number is the diameter of the tin, the second number the approximate area. Both in inches.
5 - 20
6 - 28
7 - 38
8 - 50
9 64
10 79
11 95
12 113
18 255
( i added the 18 inch measurement, I don't actually have that in my book :rotfl:

How it works is: you look up the area of the tin you want to use and the area of the recipe tin and then divide the want-to-use area by the recipe area and that gives you the number to multiply your ingredients by.

In your case, say your recipe was for a 9" tin, that's area 64 and the 18" tin is area 255. So 255/64 = 3.98 or near enough 4 so you would need to make 4 times the quantity (and it would make a slightly deeper cake).

Feel free to ask any questions or get me to do the math for you.

Best of luck.

Jill

PS Where ya gonna get an 18" tin?

PS2 Are you sure it will fit in your oven?

PS3 Something else I forgot to mention - it's worth looking at the oven temp. and time of cooking and considering whether they need altering -- often when I'm making a smaller cake it doesn't need quite as long as the recipe.



I

JillS_2

rachbc wrote: »

yeah ts massive isn't it - I'm not even sure its practical - might have to go back to the drawing board...I want a sponge rather than fruit cake - probably a maderia type cake as its being carved into a shape so needs to be sturdy!

Found some info online about scaling up to 14" but thats all!

Another thought. Is the cake being iced? If it is then it would probably be practical to use several square or oblong tins and glue the resulting cakes together with apricot glaze or something similar. (Put the cakes together and cut out the shape first and then glue them as you arrange them on the board or serving plate - don't try to glue and then move )

zippychick

ive merged this with an older thread asking the same question. Let us know how you get on

Zip

kirstygem

Hi I am making my wee sisters wedding cake in July-yes I am crazy!! I made Delias Classic Christmas cake as a practice last Christmas and it was a big hit but it was a 7inch square. For the wedding I need a 12 inch and 10 inch square but not sure how to scale up the recipes x

THIRZAH

If you have a copy of the original Complete Cookery book she gives quantities and cooking times for about 3 different sizes of Christmas cakes.

zippychick

As this has dropped down the board,ive merged this with an older thread on scaling recipes up and down. Do let us know how you get on!

Zip

Pepzofio

OK, so I'm making a large sponge cake for my son's fifth birthday party tomorrow, stupid me just upscaled the basic Delia sponge recipe I found online thinking I'd just increase the cooking time a bit... Having now put the cake in the oven, I've googled to get an idea of how much longer it will take and general consensus seems to be Do Not Upscale Sponge Recipes, but if you must then reduce temp and extend cooking time.

The thing is, the most anyone seems to have done is doubled the quantities. The recipe I was working off was 4oz flour/butter/sugar and I've upscaled that to 18oz... _pale_

Recipe states 25-30 mins at 170c - only concrete advice I've seen is to reduce cooking temp after 30mins. Does anyone know how much I should reduce the temp by & how long to extend the cooking time? Cake has been in for 35 mins now and I reduced temp to 150c after 1/2 an hour.

bloomerang72

Hi

The best cake to do bigger is madeira as it will hold its shape longer. Give me some time and I'll see if I can find something to help.................