BASIC CONVERSION FORMULA WHEN USING DIFFERENT CAKE PAN SIZE

THIS month gonna be something different. Instead of recipes I will only post interesting information collected from various sources including Facebook, blogs and others.

The reason is I'm going to be very busy with various activities that will take me away from the kitchen. 

Enough chitchat, first up is the article I read in The Tough Cookie about how to convert (reduce or multiply) a cake recipe when using a different pan size.

WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE THE RIGHT SIZE CAKE PAN

Imagine being in your kitchen, ready to bake an awesome cake. The first thing you do is turn on your oven and read through the recipe (because we all do that, right?). Say the recipe you want to make calls for an 8-inch springform pan, and all you have is a 9-inch springform pan. Or, even worse, you don’t even have a springform pan and all you have is a regular round 9-inch cake pan. Or, you have an 8-inch cake pan, a 10-inch cake pan and even a 12-inch cake pan, but not a 7-inch cake pan!

It’s the worst! Especially if you’re halfway through a recipe…

So what do you do when this happens? Well, you may find yourself surfing the world wide web in order to find out if you can use one of your other pans. Usually, what you’ll find is something like this:

Pan Size	Volume	or…	Pan Size	Volume
6 x 2 inches	4 cups		18 x 5 centimeters	1280 mls
8 x 2 inches	6 cups		20 x 5 centimeters	1570 mls
9 x 2 inches	8 cups		22 x 5 centimeters	1900 mls

Yeah… So not helpful! I don’t need to know how much water goes into a 6-inch pan! I need to know if I can use one of the pans I already have instead of the pan the recipe calls for!

Enter: the Round Cake Pan Conversion Formula!

WHY YOU NEED THE ROUND CAKE PAN CONVERSION FORMULA

If you were to use a smaller cake pan that the recipe calls for, you would quickly find out that the amount of batter the recipe makes is too much for your smaller pan. Best case scenario? You realize this before the pan is in the oven and decide not to pour all the batter in. That could happen.

Another thing that could happen is: you pour all the batter in your cake pan only to find out that, once it’s time to pull the cake out of the oven, it isn’t done yet. You decide to give the cake another few minutes in the oven, which eventually leads to a done cake with a burned top. Not ideal…

And the worst case scenario? You pour all the batter in, place the cake in the oven and go about your business. Forty minutes later you’re scraping blackened bits of cake from the bottom of your oven, because the batter has spilled over the edges of your cake pan…

Truth be told, using a smaller cake pan isn’t the end of the world, especially if you know what you’re doing. I make larger batches of cake batter all the time and use them to make smaller cakes. After all, experienced bakers know to only fill a cake pan halfway to two-thirds of the way up with batter. And having some leftover batter usually isn’t a problem. Not in this house, anyway…

No, it gets tricky when you only have a slightly larger pan at your disposal. Sure, you could double the recipe, but usually that means that you will have a lot of leftover batter. And while I like a little leftover cake batter, I don’t like having an entire bowl of the stuff… I can’t just throw it away, but eating it all seems a little excessive… So does eating an entire batch of cupcakes made with leftover batter…

THE ROUND CAKE PAN CONVERSION FORMULA IN CENTIMETERS AND INCHES

Like I said: with this formula, you can adjust the original recipe to fit your cake pan of choice. Just keep in mind, this formula only changes the cake’s diameter, not its height! If you want a taller or thinner cake, this formula won’t help you much.

Step 1: start by determining the radius of the pan the recipe calls for:

(diameter of cake pan in centimeters or inches )/ 2 = radius

So, for a 18-cm cake pan:
18/2 = 9 cm  –> radius is 9 cm

For a 7-inch cake pan:
7/2 = 3.5 inches –> radius is 3.5 inches

Step 2: determine the radius of the pan you want to use:

Again: (diameter of cake pan in centimeters or inches )/ 2 = radius

If you want to use a 20-cm cake pan:
20/2 = 10 cm –> radius is 10 cm

If you want to use an 8-inch cake pan:
8/2 = 4 inches –> radius is 4 inches

Step 3: use the new round cake pan conversion formula to determine the factor with which you need to multiply the ingredients in the recipe

Round cake pan conversion formula:
(radius x radius of the pan you’re using)/ (radius x radius of the pan the recipe calls for) = factor

So, in centimeters:
(10×10)/(9×9) = 1.234

If the recipe calls for a 18-cm cake pan and you want to use a 20-cm cake pan, the factor with which you need to multiply the ingredients  the recipe calls for is 1.234.

And in inches:
(4×4)/(3,5×3.5) = 1.306

If the recipe calls for a 7-inch cake pan and you want to use a 8-inch cake pan, the factor with which you need to multiply the ingredients  the recipe calls for is 1.306.

Step 4: once you’ve calculated the factor by which you should multiply the ingredients, calculate the amount of ingredient’s you’ll need:

The recipe may call for the following ingredients:
– 4 eggs
– 200g (or 1 cup) of sugar
– 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
– 480ml (or 2 cups) of milk

For centimeters:
4 (eggs) x 1.234 = 4.936 eggs –> 5 eggs
200 (grams of sugar) x 1.234 = 246.8 grams of sugar –> 250g of sugar
1 teaspoon (vanilla extract) x 1.234 = 1.234 teaspoon of vanilla extract –> 1¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
480 (ml of milk) x 1.234 = 592.32 ml of milk –>590ml milk

For inches, bearing in mind that 1 cup equals 240ml:
4 (eggs) x 1.306 = 5.224 eggs –> 5 eggs
240ml (of sugar) x 1.306= 313.44 ml of sugar –> 1¼ cup + 1 tablespoon sugar
5 (ml vanilla extract) x 1.306 = 6.53 ml –> 1¼ teaspoon vanilla extract 
480 (ml of milk) x 1.306 =626.88 ml –> 2½ cups + 2 tablespoons of milk

Of course, if you measure by volume rather than weight, you need to be aware of the following:

CUPS	VOLUME
1 cup	240ml
½ cup	120ml
⅓ cup	80ml
¼ cup	60ml

SPOONS	VOLUME
1 tablespoon	15ml
1 teaspoon	5ml
½ teaspoon	2.5ml
¼ teaspoon	1.25ml

SO, JUST TO RECAP:

Step 1: start by determining the radius of the pan the recipe calls for:(diameter of cake pan in centimeters or inches )/ 2 = radius

Step 2: determine the radius of the pan you want to use:Again: (diameter of cake pan in centimeters or inches )/ 2 = radius

Step 3: use the new round cake pan conversion formula to determine the factor with which you need to multiply the ingredients in the recipe using the round cake pan conversion formula:(radius x radius of the pan you’re using)/ (radius x radius of the pan the recipe calls for) = factor

Step 4: use this factor to calculate the amount of ingredient’s you’ll need:factor x ingredients = right amount of ingredients for your pan

That’s it! Isn’t that easy??? This way, you can turn a recipe that makes a tiny 13-cm/5-inch cake into a huge wedding cake! Just calculate the factor by which you need to multiply the ingredients! And don’t worry too much if the amount of ingredients you need is a bit odd, like 388ml or something. Trust me, 390ml will do fine!

Oh, and the best part? This method works for regular cake pans and springform pans! Just don’t forget to use your head before pouring a batter into a springform pan. The batter can’t be too runny! Oh, and baking a cheesecake in a regular cake pan doesn’t sound like a good idea to me either, but apart from that, this method works beautifully!