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[–]Pastry Cook 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Rule of thumb for a chemically aerated recipe, aim for 2/3 up the side of the tin.

If you want more specific scaling help, this is a great chart to save for future reference: https://www.wilton.com/cake-serving-guide/cms-baking-serving-guide.html

As for how to convert recipes, it's pretty simple as long as all measurements are by weight. If anything is by volume, convert it to weight by getting the listed volume and weighing it - don't try and use any sort of conversion chart for ingredients volume to weight. Once it's all in weight, look at your chart, figure out how much batter you'll need, and divide that volume by the volume your recipe normally makes. Take the resulting number and times all of your ingredient weights by that factor. Baking time and heats should also be adjusted, by the same method, using the listed heats and times on that chart as a base to figure out the appropriate factor for your recipe.

Example: You've got a recipe of a 9 x 3 round, you want to use a 9 x 2 round. Chart says a 9 x 2 requires 5 cups of batter, but it doesn't have a 9 x 3 entry. However that's no problem, since a round tin is just a cylinder, and the volume of a cylinder is easy -

V = π (that's actually pi, not n, but reddit's font is stupid) x r2 x h. In our case, all we're doing is increasing h, so we don't really care about the rest. If a 9x2 tin requires 5 cups, a 9x3 tin will require 7.5.

So 5 cups divided by 7.5 cups - 0.666. You now take the recipe by weights and simply multiply every ingredient by 0.66. I cannot stress this enough though, this does NOT work for volumetric measurements. Yes, you can figure out the math, but there's just so many exceptions and faffing about it's not worth it. If you keep it to whole numbers (ie,multiplying everything by 4), it should come out fine, but as soon as you enter into fractions, it just goes out the window.

This is the real reason basically all professional baking recipes are strictly in weights. If you want enough batter for 30 cakes, you just multiply all your weights by 30, and the batter will come out exactly the same.

[–][S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for this! Solid advice. Appreciate you taking the time to reply.

[–] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Without pictures in the recipe it's difficult to tell. A shorter pan will promote more doming and a darker top crust. It's entirely possible that you'll be able to use a 9x2 pan with no problems, but it could be too much batter, leading to overflow. Your best bet is probably just to eyeball it, but if you don't use all of the batter, it will cook faster.

[–][S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for your reply. I ended up eyeballing and happily averted an overflow. Made 6 cupcakes with the left over batter. And yea- the cake was done about 10 min before the recipe said. Nice rise. Very good cake, btw. Definitely an adult-type cake if you ask me. I glazed it but also ate it with home made lemon sherbet. Would be good with some rum sauce maybe.
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