Question 1

Does cooking time scale with the recipe?

Accepted Answer

Not in proportion. Time follows the depth of the layer rather than the quantity: a double batch in a dish of twice the area bakes in about the same time, while the same dish filled twice as deep takes noticeably longer. Go by a thermometer or a test, not by the multiplier.

Question 2

Can I halve a recipe with one egg?

Accepted Answer

Beat the egg, weigh it, and use half — about 25 g. Guessing by eye is the usual source of a flat cake.

Question 3

Does salt scale like everything else?

Accepted Answer

On paper, yes: twice the food, twice the salt, and the concentration stays the same. What changes is the pot — a bigger batch reduces differently and can end up saltier or blander. So it is safer to add a little less than calculated and season at the end than to rescue an oversalted dish.

Question 4

Does baking scale as well as cooking?

Accepted Answer

Less well. Baking depends on ratios and heat transfer through a specific depth, so large jumps often work better as two separate batches.

Question 5

How is the multiplier worked out?

Accepted Answer

The servings you want divided by the servings the recipe makes: four to seven is 1.75. Every amount in the list is multiplied by it, and the result is rounded to two decimals when rounding is on.

Question 6

What should not be multiplied?

Accepted Answer

Time and tin size. Salt and hot spices scale as usual, but add them gradually and taste, because a bigger batch reduces differently. With the batter at the same depth, a tin's area grows with the multiplier and its diameter with the square root of it: twice the batter needs a tin 1.41 times as wide. Baking time does not follow that rule; it depends on the depth.

Servings wanted	Multiplier	200 g of flour becomes	1 tsp of salt becomes
2	0.5	100 g	0.5 tsp
6	1.5	300 g	1.5 tsp
7	1.75	350 g	1.75 tsp
8	2	400 g	2 tsp

Recipe scaler: adjust ingredients for more or fewer servings

Scaled recipe

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