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Ingredients to use scaling up Paul’s Recipe

Hi all

Am going to have a go at making Pauls chocolate cake recipe. im new to cake decorating and am making a wedding cake in September for some friends. I am going to make the top 2 tiers as chocolate. They will be 9″ and 6″. Do I use the same quantity as Paul ( 10″ and 6″) and just have some left over?

I was going to try making an 8″ as a practice (for taste and covering). Im not sure if I can just halve the ingredients as other recipes have completley different amounts for example a 5″ and 10″.

Also will i get the same flat surface if i use choc buttercream as a filling and ganache on the outside?

Also does anyone think it would be helpfull if quantities were stated for different sizes for us newbies

Hi jb, I can’t convert either so I use the cake o metre which can be found on Cake Baker site, or just google in cake o metre. Hope this helps, would be good to know how you get on with it.

Here is a link for changing quantities http://www.lindyscakes.co.uk/2009/07/27/how-to-i-change-a-cake-recipe-quanities/.

Yes an 8″ cake is half the ingredients of a 10″+6″.

I have only ever used buttercream for filling and covering and my cakes have been fine.  I think ganache may give you a better finish to the side of the cake if they are not perfectly straight.

I don’t think they could put ingredients for different sized cakes on this site as there would be too many.  A chart like above would be useful for everyone.

Jx

Thanks for the chart thats really usefull.

I am still confused with the quantities though. From the chart it assumes your making an 8″. If you make a 4″ its 1/4 of the ingredients.

Pauls ingredients for 10″ and 6″ (16″) so would 8″ be 1/2 or 1/4 or??.

Sorry if im confusing you but I think ive confused myself! lol

Maybe I find it easy ‘cos I am mathematically minded, sorry.  Paul’s recipe is for a 10″ cake (1 and a half times an 8″ recipe) and a 6″ cake (half an 8″ recipe) therefore to bake a 10″ and a 6″ he needs one and half plus half the recipe used to make an 8″ cake (ie twice the ingredients).  I actually work mine out by volume but that’s even more maths.  The other method I have read about is to fill a tin with water and pour it into the one you wish to use to see how many times the water goes in(ie fill an 8″ round tin with water, pour into a 10″ round tin and it should go use one and a half lots of water0.  Hope this makes sense, I am not very good verbally need to show you!

Jx

I made two 8 inch cakes using Paul’s chocolate recipe and they were fine – the height was around 2 1/2 inches when baked. The only thing was I lined one tin with double parchment and left the other one only greased.  Unfortunately this one broke when I tried to remove it so I will be lining the cakes tins in future.  Also I was tempted to look in the oven and one cake sank slightly – I should have left them without looking as Paul suggests.