Cupcake Basics: Scaling a Recipe
Scaling a recipe is a way to halve or double your cupcake recipe to suit your needs. There will be times when you’ll see a cupcake recipe call for 3 cups of flour or a cupcake recipe that yields 24 cupcakes. However, you might just be baking a test batch or you might be baking just for yourself. Conversely, you might see a cupcake recipe that yields 6 cupcakes, when you know you’ll need 12 cupcakes for that get together.
So, how then do you accurately halve or double a recipe without actually messing up the final results? It’s easy to halve 3 cups of flour into 1.5 cups of flour, but what about the other ingredients? Do you also know that if you halve or double a cupcake recipe, you inadvertently have to reduce or increase the baking time? Baking is so intricate, I tell you, no room for errors!
Some more measurements that will be helpful when scaling your recipe:
3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon
4 tablespoons = 1/4 cup
5 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon = 1/3 cup
8 tablespoons = 1/2 cup
16 tablespoons = 1 cup
Using those measurements in a mock recipe, see below:
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Scaling a Baking Recipe |
||
| Original Recipe | Halved Recipe | Doubled Recipe |
| 1 cup (16 tbsps) | ½ cup | 2 cups |
| ¾ cup (12 tbsps) | ¼ cup + 2 tbsps | 1 ½ cups |
| 2/3 cup (10.5 tbsps) | 1/3 cup | 1 1/3 cups |
| ½ cup (8 tbsps) | ¼ cup | 1 cup |
| 1/3 cup (5 tbsps + 1 tsp) | 3 tbsps | 2/3 cup |
| ¼ cup (4 tbsps) | 2 tbsps | ½ cup |
| 2 tbsps | 1 ½ tbsps. | ¼ cup |
| 1 Tbsp (15 ml or 3 tsp) | 1 ½ tsp | 2 tbsps |
| 2 tsps | 1 tsp | 4 tsps |
| 1 tsp | ½ tsp | 2 tsps |
| ½ tsp | ¼ tsp | 1 tsp |
| ¼ tsp | 1 pinch | ½ tsp |
Cupcake Basics: Scaling a Recipe,
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4 Responses to "Cupcake Basics: Scaling a Recipe"
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3 teaspoons = 1 tablespoon
I have never thought about that haha
Thanks :)
Hey Daniela!
Funny when you think about it! You’re welcome ;)
Hello,
Do you have any suggestions or tricks when scaling a recipe that yields 24 cupcakes down to only 6 (so 1/4 of the recipe)?
I’m making a test batch of 4 different cupcakes so I only want to make a few samplers of each.
Thank you so much!!
Hey Natalie!
To make 6 cupcakes, I’d guesstimate anywhere from 3/4 to 1 cup of flour, 1/2 a cup of sugar, 1.5 tsps baking powder, 5 tbsps butter, 1-2 large eggs and maybe a 1/2 cup of milk. I will be making reader cupcakes starting tomorrow and I plan to make 6 at a time, so I’ll be able to give more specifics then.
Hope this helps for now!