How to halve or double a recipe
Paste the ingredients, one per line. Type how much the recipe makes and how much you need: 4 and 2 halves it, 4 and 8 doubles it, 12 and 30 turns a dozen cookies into thirty. The count can be servings, cookies, slices or loaves, as long as both numbers count the same thing.
The scaler rewrites each amount in measures a kitchen has. Six teaspoons become 2 tablespoons, 8 tablespoons become half a cup, and three eighths of a cup is written as a quarter cup plus 2 tablespoons. Lines with no amount, such as salt to taste, stay as they are.
What is half of three quarters of a cup?
These are the amounts that are awkward to work out in your head.
| Amount | Half | A third | Double |
|---|---|---|---|
| ¼ cup | 2 tbsp | 1 tbsp + 1 tsp | ½ cup |
| ⅓ cup | 2 tbsp + 2 tsp | 1 tbsp + 2 ¼ tsp | ⅔ cup |
| ½ cup | ¼ cup | 2 tbsp + 2 tsp | 1 cup |
| ⅔ cup | ⅓ cup | 3 tbsp + 1 ¾ tsp | 1 ⅓ cups |
| ¾ cup | ¼ cup + 2 tbsp | ¼ cup | 1 ½ cups |
| 1 cup | ½ cup | ⅓ cup | 2 cups |
| 1 ½ cups | ¾ cup | ½ cup | 3 cups |
| 1 tbsp | 1 ½ tsp | 1 tsp | 2 tbsp |
| 1 tsp | ½ tsp | ⅓ tsp | 2 tsp |
How to halve an egg
Crack the egg into a cup, beat it with a fork and use half by weight. A large egg weighs about 50 g out of its shell, so half is about 25 g. King Arthur Baking recommends weighing eggs for exactly this reason. For a recipe with three eggs, beat all three and weigh out half.
What does not scale in a straight line
Baking time. A smaller batch is done sooner, but not in proportion. King Arthur Baking suggests starting to check at half the original time.
The pan. Half the batter in the same pan gives a thin layer that overbakes. Use the baking pan converter to find a pan with about half the base.
Salt, spices and chili. Add a little less than the scaled amount when you scale up, then taste.
Oven temperature. It stays the same.
