Recipe Scaler

Paste a recipe's ingredient list, say how much you want, and get the whole list back resized and ready to copy. There are three ways to set the size: by servings (a recipe for 4, cooked for 6), by a straight multiplier (½×, 2×, or any factor like 1/3 or 1.25), or by the one ingredient that limits you — "I only have 2 cups of flour" scales everything else to match.

The scaler reads amounts the way recipes write them: whole numbers, decimals, fractions (1/2), Unicode fractions (½), mixed numbers (1 1/2, 1½), and ranges (2-3 cloves). It recognises US and metric units — cups, tablespoons (tbsp, T), teaspoons (tsp, t), fluid ounces, pints, grams, kilograms, milliliters, ounces, pounds — plus counts like cloves, cans, and sticks. Anything it can't read as an amount — a heading, "salt and pepper to taste", a method step — is copied through exactly as written.

Amounts you can actually measure

Multiplying 1 teaspoon by 48 should say "1 cup", not "48 tsp", and halving ¾ cup should not say "0.375 cups". Scaled US measures are rewritten in the unit a cook would reach for: teaspoons (to the nearest ⅛) under a tablespoon, tablespoons under a quarter cup, then cups — with a spoon remainder when the result doesn't land on a measuring-cup size, as in "⅓ cup + 2 tsp". Ounces turn into pounds and ounces past 16. Metric amounts are rounded like a kitchen scale would show them, and switch to kilograms or liters past 1,000.

An equivalent in parentheses after the unit, like 2 cups (480 ml) milk, is scaled with the rest. A package size after a bare count, like 1 (14 oz) can tomatoes, is left alone — you need two of the same can, not one 28-ounce can. Simple count nouns follow the number, so halving "2 large eggs" gives "1 large egg".

Converting to metric

Choose metric output and cups, fluid ounces, and pints become milliliters while ounces and pounds become grams. The "dry ingredients weighed" option goes further and turns cup measures of recognised ingredients — flour, sugar, butter, oats, nuts, and about sixty others — into grams using the same weight table as the Cups to Grams Converter. Liquids stay in milliliters, and teaspoons and tablespoons stay as spoons, the way metric recipes are written.

What doesn't scale in a straight line

• Leavening. Doubling a cake usually doesn't need quite double the baking powder or soda, and a big batch of bread dough rises faster than a small one.
• Salt and strong spices. Season a scaled-up dish with about three-quarters of the multiplied amount, then taste.
• Eggs. Half an egg is best measured by weight: a US large egg is about 50 g out of the shell.
• Pans and time. A doubled batter needs a bigger pan (or two), and a deeper pan bakes longer at the same temperature. The Cake Pan Converter works out the pan swap and timing.

Example

Recipe serves 4, servings wanted 6

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
2 large eggs
1 cup (2 sticks) butter

3⅓ cups + 2 tsp all-purpose flour
1½ tsp baking soda
3 large eggs
1½ cups (3 sticks) butter

Limitations

• It scales the ingredient list, not the method. Times, temperatures, and pan sizes in the steps are left as written.
• Only amounts at the start of a line are scaled; "juice of 1 lemon" or "one 400 g tin" stays as is.
• "oz" is read as weight. Write "fl oz" for liquid ounces.
• Weighing by ingredient only works for ingredients in the converter's table; anything else is converted by volume.

How do I scale a recipe up or down?

Divide the servings you want by the servings the recipe makes to get a scale factor, then multiply every ingredient by it. A recipe for 4 cooked for 6 has a factor of 6 ÷ 4 = 1.5, so 2 cups of flour becomes 3 cups. Paste the ingredient list here and the scaler does every line at once, rewriting awkward results like 0.375 cups as ⅓ cup + 2 tsp.

How do I cut a recipe in half?

Multiply every amount by ½. Some halves are awkward to measure: half of ¾ cup is 6 tablespoons (or ⅓ cup + 2 tsp), half of 1 tablespoon is 1½ teaspoons, and half of ⅓ cup is 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons. For an odd number of eggs, beat one and use about 25 g.

Can I scale a recipe based on how much of one ingredient I have?

Yes. Choose "Ingredient on hand", pick the ingredient line, and enter how much you have in the same unit. If the recipe needs 3 cups of flour and you have 2, everything is scaled by ⅔.

Do you double the baking time when you double a recipe?

No. Bake time depends on how deep the food sits in the pan, not on how much there is. A doubled batter in two of the original pans bakes in about the original time; in one deeper pan it takes longer, usually at the same temperature. Start checking at the original time and keep going until it's done.

Should I double the salt and baking powder when doubling a recipe?

Not always exactly. Many cooks add about three-quarters of the doubled salt and strong spices, then adjust to taste, and bakers often use slightly less than double the leavening in big batches. The scaler shows the exact multiplied amount and flags these ingredients so you can decide.

How many tablespoons are in a quarter cup?

Four. A US cup is 16 tablespoons, a tablespoon is 3 teaspoons, so ¼ cup = 4 tbsp = 12 tsp and ⅓ cup = 5 tbsp + 1 tsp. That's the ladder the scaler uses when it turns scaled teaspoons into tablespoons and cups.

Can it convert a recipe from cups to grams?

Yes. Set Units to "Metric, dry ingredients weighed" and cup measures of common ingredients are converted to grams (flour at 120 g a cup, sugar at 200 g, butter at 227 g), while liquids become milliliters. Choose a scale factor of 1 to convert without resizing.

Is the recipe I paste uploaded anywhere?

No. Parsing and scaling run entirely in your browser; the recipe is never sent to a server or stored.