How Do I Scale Recipe To Bake For A Wedding Cake.
Baking By Sweetly Baked Updated 12 Dec 2012 , 1:49pm by BakingIrene
Sorry if this is a silly question but I am really having trouble on conversions, so thought you all cakey people could help me please.
Ok the question really is,
When I see a recipe in a cookbook and it says this will serve 12 people, how do I scale it for 100 people for a wedding cake. According to wilton website a party cake serving size is bigger than wedding cake serving size, shall I assume that the recipe in the book is going by party size and convert it accordingly.
Do all the recipes in the cookbooks/recipe books/ internet go by party serving sizes when they say the recipe serves 12-14 people.
I have to get around converting recipes. It would really helpful if you can help me please.
Thanks a lot
I use those Wilton charts (google wilton cake data) and go by the cups of batter to make my conversions.
For example one layer of a 9" round uses 5 & 1/3 cups of batter and you get 15 16 servings wedding size.
This is about the size of a cake mix--except they make them smaller now so...
The cups of batter listed there are for one layer and the servings listed there in the chart is for two layer
So you have to guesstimate how many cups of batter in your recipe. Or flat out make the recipe or cake mix and measure. Then of course just document this info in your recipe and you'll always know.
Roughly it's 1/3 cup batter per Wilton wedding cake size serving.
It's not a silly question it's a very important question. And as far as for all recipes -- there is no hard and fast standard. Which is why I recommend just measuring and doing the math for yourself.
Ahttp://www.wilton.com/wedding/wedding-cakes/wedding-cake-data.cfm this chart shows you what size cakes you need to get the amount of severings you need
When I see a recipe in a cookbook and it says this will serve 12 people, how do I scale it for 100 people for a wedding cake. According to wilton website a party cake serving size is bigger than wedding cake serving size, shall I assume that the recipe in the book is going by party size and convert it accordingly.
You don't have to assume anything.
Every cake recipe should tell you which sizes of pan to use, or it will tell you how much (weight or volume) batter it makes. If it doesn't tell you that extremely important information, DO NOT use it unless you want to do a test for your own comsumption.
The Wilton pages for wedding and party servings tell you the exact size of each serving, there is no assuming anything there. I personally find there is one deficiency with the Wilton charts: they give you smallish pieces of oval and some other odd shaped cakes. Those ends of rows look smaller than I would recommend to serve so I figure less pieces than the Wilton wedding chart for those shapes.
The Wilton wedding cake serving size is eight cubic inches, so you can scale any recipe that tells you it makes one 9" by 13" by 2" cake.
Area of a rectangle/square is height time width.
Area of a circle is pi times radius squared (pi times long radius times short radius for an oval). Remember that the radius is HALF the diameter.
And volume is area times depth.
I use an Excel table for scaling cake recipes. Once you make a column with the measurements for a "good" recipe (one that consistently gives you good results), then you simply make another column with each ingredient multiplied by any factor you like. I save these tables and print them out in large font to work from without fear of losing a precious recipe.
Once you have scaled a recipe on paper, be careful to look it over. You cannot always mix a very large batch the same as two medium sized batches. This aspect of scaling up is covered in cookbooks with wedding cake recipes, they explain how much batter to mix at one time very well.
Baking Irene will definitely do all the math before I venture into wedding cakes.
Making an excel sheet with my favourite recipes beforehand sounds a great Idea.
Thanks so much everyone for your replies.
You can even start your math by making a table with all the factors for all the pans you own and might buy in future.
The octagons and petals are pretty close to circles but will serve fewer people--for those I just guesstimate the servings and use the Wilton round pan info for volume of batter.
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