Modifying recipes for test batches

[lilthorner]

forgive me if there is a thread.. I am getting better at searching though..

when testing out a recipe (cake, filling sauce custard etc, but mainly cake)

would/do you scale the recipe to make a smaller batch? I have a devils food cake recipe scaled to 1/16 because the recipe was given to me by my instructor and made a lot of cake.. 1/4 was still to big for my kitchen aid LOL

[pastrygirl]

Absolutely. It seems whenever I get overconfident and test a full batch of a new recipe, it turns out less than stellar, or at least not how I'd hoped. Half batch, quarter batch, one sixth, whatever is practical. Of course things like cakes will bake differently if you do a small pan as opposed to a larger pan, so you have to be cognizant of that when you're scaling back up. If you're working at a place that keeps a close eye on food cost, all those test batches are going to go in the waste column, so you'd best keep them to a minimum!

[Kerry Beal]

For chocolate centers - all the time. I often do multiple small batches until I get what I'm after.

[tammylc]

For chocolate centers - all the time.  I often do multiple small batches until I get what I'm after.

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Kerry, what size do you do your chocolate test batches at usually? With some formulas that have really small quantities of things, it seems difficult to scale down too far. I usually make 100g test batches (makes measuring easy, I can just use the percentages) but that sometimes seems like a waste!

[lilthorner]

thanks guys.. I am really wanting to try a cake recipe, I have successfully halved a recipe from a cookbook (not commercial quantity) but had never done more than that.

I wont do it if it only contains like 1 egg or somethign ( i will go ahead and do the whole batch..

[Kerry Beal]

For chocolate centers - all the time.  I often do multiple small batches until I get what I'm after.

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Kerry, what size do you do your chocolate test batches at usually? With some formulas that have really small quantities of things, it seems difficult to scale down too far. I usually make 100g test batches (makes measuring easy, I can just use the percentages) but that sometimes seems like a waste!

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Probably about 100 -200 grams.

[etalanian]

thanks guys.. I am really wanting to try a cake recipe, I have successfully halved a recipe from a cookbook (not commercial quantity) but had never done more than that.

I wont do it if it only contains like 1 egg or somethign ( i will go ahead and do the whole batch..

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If you want to halve a recipe that only contains one egg, beat the egg lightly with a fork or small whisk until smooth and you can't see any white/yolk variances, and measure it - use half in the recipe.

Good luck with your recipe testing!

Eileen

[Tri2Cook]

I wont do it if it only contains like 1 egg or somethign ( i will go ahead and do the whole batch..

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I'm thinking any cake recipe with 1 egg is going to be a pretty small batch anyway but it's still not hard to scale down if you want to. I've done tests of several different variations of a cake by making really small amounts and baking each in a seperate cup of a muffin pan. I just beat up a few eggs, weigh it and divide it by the number of eggs used so I know the weight of each egg. Then I can scale down to fractions of an egg by weight.

Edit: Looks like I type too slow so, yeah, what Eileen said.

Edited May 1, 2008 by Tri2Cook (log)

[lilthorner]

when I half a recipe that uses an odd number of eggs I weigh and use half I dont know why it didnt dawn on me to do that anyway..

so I made a test batch of chiffon cupcakes and it made umm 12 lol.. (the recipe is from school and I made 1/8 times the recipe.. guess I gotta break it down more next time..