How to Bake Small Batches of Your Favorite Holiday Desserts Without Spoiling Your Recipe
The holidays are largely about enjoying many of your favorite foods – it’s not exactly a festive meal unless your plate is overwhelmed by a whole constellation of colors and textures. However, if you are having a small Thanksgiving Day, the total amount of food cooked in its usual proportions can get overwhelming, especially if you want to fill your table with all the food, including an assortment of different pies and other desserts. … The answer to this tricky question is to bake in small batches.
Baking in small batches is what it sounds like – a process by which you bake fewer of your favorite desserts so that you have enough without overdoing it or risking most of the leftovers being wasted. Depending on the size of the original recipe and the number of people you bake for, this could involve cutting the amount in half, a third, or a quarter.
Baking in small batches comes in handy if you’re having a short Thanksgiving or if you’re making a dessert that you know few will want to try. Sure, you can love pecan pie (and you deserve it!), But if you’re surrounded by people who – for some strange reason – don’t, this full-sized pie can be a challenge to eat after the holidays. … But given how precise baked goods can be, changing the proportions of your favorite recipe can be tricky.
“Baking relies heavily on accurate measurements and chemical reactions, which can pose challenges for home bakers to successfully scale a recipe up or down ,” said Christine Pittman, founder of COOKtheSTORY , which focuses on quick and easy recipes.
Before you get discouraged, there are a few guidelines to keep in mind if you want to resize your recipe.
How to Calculate Baking Ingredients for a Smaller Portion
If you want to change your favorite recipe for a smaller serving, it’s best to start by cutting it in half. “Splitting a recipe in half into smaller portions or doubling a recipe almost always gives good results; however, anything lower or higher will require an exact ratio, ”Pittman said.
The most difficult thing will be if the recipe provides for an odd number of eggs; If so, one way to split a recipe egg is to beat the egg you’re trying to split, weigh it on a food scale, and then add half to the recipe. If the egg weighs 50 grams, add 25 grams to the recipe. (This also works if you want half a yolk or half an egg white.)
How to adjust the baking time for a recipe
You will want to bake at the temperature indicated in the original recipe, but you will need to reduce the baking time. This will be one of those trial and error methods where you need to keep a close eye on what you bake.
“Follow the same baking instructions, but check the oven twice every 7-10 minutes to prevent overcooking,” Pittman said.
How to choose the right pan
It can be tricky to choose the best pan to bake a small dessert in. There are special pans for small portions, such as mini loaf pans or baking trays. There are also several alternative uses for your existing pans to help you save on additional costs. There will be some math involved, including both volume and area measurements, but there are a few simple substitutions you can keep in mind.
A standard bread pan, which is 8 1/2 “by 4 1/2”, is about half the size of an 8 “by 8” pan. (You can also get bread molds that are slightly larger or slightly smaller.) If you’re looking to halve a brownie recipe, or something that’s meant to be baked on a baking sheet of this size, a bread pan can help.
If you want to bake mini tarts that are barely enough for a couple of bites, you can use a muffin pan. For cookies or muffins, you can use the same bakeware, you just won’t need so many.
If all else fails, look for recipes for small batches.
Once you have a recipe that you absolutely love, it’s worth taking the time to calculate ingredients, bake times, and alternative baking dishes. However, if you want to get some flexibility, one way to start baking in small batches is to find pre-existing recipes for a smaller size. This will build your confidence in your ability to bake in small batches, which can lead to adapting several of your own favorite recipes.
With many of us stuck at home in small units, small batch recipes are becoming more common and readily available.
I wanted to see how adapting a recipe for a smaller portion could work in practice. To test these principles, I decided to make two desserts, which I baked quite regularly, and one recipe that was new to me.
Small batch cakes
For recipes I’ve baked in the past, I used this Katharine Hepburn famed brownie recipe as it has long become my standard and combines all the essential notes of richness, sweetness, and ease of preparation.
To make it fit for a smaller portion, I divided the ingredients in half and baked on a baking sheet. Since the recipe required two eggs, it made it easy to divide in half.
Ingredients
- ¼ a cup of cocoa
- ¼ cup unsalted butter
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
- one egg, ½ cup sugar
- 1/8 cup flour (that’s 2 tablespoons)
- ½ cup pecans
- A tiny pinch of salt.
As far as I remember, the cakes turned out to be just as juicy and fluffy, it took a little less than 25 minutes to bake, in contrast to the 30-35 minutes recommended in the original recipe.
Mini apple pies
I also wanted to try mini apple pies because pie is a dessert that I make a lot. I used a muffin pan and started by making a butter pie crust. I rolled it out, cut it into circles about 3-1 / 2 inches in diameter, and formed each into a separate cupcake cup, smeared with a little baking spray. (You can make your own pie crust or buy a pre-made one; either way will work.)
After shaping the bottom crust, I spooned the apple filling into each individual pie, spread about two cups of the filling over 8 pies, and then added a little (very dirty) wire rack on top. I baked the pies for 40 minutes at 350 ° F. They made a nice two-bite apple pie snack – all the better to whet your appetite for an even bigger pie.
Small batches of cranberry oatmeal bars
For a new recipe, I decided to try Pittman’s Cranberry Oat Bars, which have the added benefit of using leftover cranberry sauce. The original recipe was enough to make a 13 “by 9” pan; I decided to divide the original recipe by a third and bake it on a baking sheet that takes up about a third of the area. Since there were no eggs, it was easier to separate the ingredients, although it was a little difficult to divide 1 teaspoon and ½ teaspoon by 3.
Ingredients
- 2/3 cup oatmeal
- 2/3 cup white flour
- 1/3 cup brown sugar
- Baking powder
- 1/6 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/6 teaspoon salt
- 1/3 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 1/3 can of cranberry sauce
Note. For baking powder, baking soda, and salt, I used a rounded teaspoon and a rounded teaspoon to estimate approximately 1/3 and 1/6 teaspoon.
The cranberry bars took 20 minutes to bake, not 25-30 minutes as suggested for the complete recipe. The oatmeal and cranberry sauce balance was a good cleanser I could see between main courses and the rest of the desserts – or for breakfast the morning after Thanksgiving.
Baking in smaller quantities can take a bit of trial and error, but it’s worth it if you’re craving a larger variety of desserts with less leftover waste.