The Mac and Cheese recipe makes five servings, but you’re throwing a dinner party for nine people. You’re in luck: We’ve made it easy to scale our recipes up to greater yields (or down if you have fewer mouths to feed) by using baker’s percentages. Just follow these simple steps.
- Look in the scaling column of the recipe, and find the ingredient having a scaling value of 100%. Note the weight given. The 100% ingredient is usually the one that has the biggest effect on the yield of the recipe.
Example: The 100% ingredient in the Mac and Cheese recipe above is white cheddar cheese.
- Calculate the scaling factor by dividing the number of servings (or grams) you want to make by the recipe yield.
Example: This recipe yields five servings. If you are making nine servings, the scaling factor is 9 ÷ 5 = 1.8. (You can use the weight of the yield rather than the servings to calculate the scaling factor: If you want to make 1,100 grams of mac and cheese from a recipe that yields 800 g as written, the scaling factor is 1,100 ÷ 800 = 1.4.)
- Calculate the scaled 100% value for the recipe by multiplying the weight of the 100% ingredient by the scaling factor from step 2.
Example: This five-serving recipe calls for 285 g of white cheddar, which is the 100% ingredient. To make nine servings, you will thus need 285 g x 1.8 = 513.0 g of white cheddar cheese. The scaled 100% value for this recipe is 513.0.
- Calculate the scaled weight for every other ingredient in the recipe by multiplying its scaling percentage by the scaled 100% value from above. You can ignore the weights and volumes given in the recipejust use the scaling percentages.
Example: The scaling percentage given for dry macaroni is 84%. Multiplying this by the scaled 100% from step 3, you find that 0.84 x 513.0 = 430.9. Similarly, you need 0.93 x 513.0 = 477.1 g of water or milk and 0.04 x 513.0 = 20.5 g of sodium citrate.
Because volume measurements are often rounded to the nearest spoon or cup, you should not multiply or divide volumes when scaling a recipe up or down. Instead, scale the weights as described above, and then weigh the ingredients on a digital scale.
Adapted from Modernist Cuisine at Home