Recipe scaler — resize a whole ingredient list
Paste a whole ingredient list and rescale every quantity at once for a new serving count, re-rendered as clean fractions, with optional metric weights.
- Runs in your browser
- Nothing you enter is sent
- Free, no account
factor = new servings ÷ original servings factor = 6 ÷ 4 = 1.5 example: 2 cups × 1.5 = 3 cups → 3 cups
Paste the list, not one line at a time
Scaling a recipe by hand is not hard — it is just fourteen small multiplications, each of them a chance to drop a factor of two. This tool takes the whole ingredient list at once, finds the quantity at the start of each line, multiplies it, and rewrites the line with the rest of the text untouched.
Anything it does not recognise as a quantity passes straight through, so headings, method notes and "salt to taste" survive intact and the output is still a list you can cook from.
What it understands
| Input line | Doubled |
|---|---|
| 2 cups all-purpose flour | 4 cups all-purpose flour |
| 1 1/2 tsp baking powder | 3 tsp baking powder |
| 3/4 cup granulated sugar | 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar |
| 113 g butter, softened | 226 g butter, softened |
| 2-3 tbsp water, as needed | 4–6 tbsp water, as needed |
| 2 large eggs | 4 large eggs |
| Salt to taste | Salt to taste |
Fractions, mixed numbers, unicode fractions such as 1½, decimals and ranges are all parsed. Results are snapped back to fractions a measuring cup can hit — eighths for cups and teaspoons, quarters for tablespoons and ounces — rather than being printed as 1.3333 cups.
What scales linearly, and what does not
Ingredient quantities scale. Physics does not. The things to adjust by hand after the tool has done the arithmetic:
- Salt and strong spices. Perceived intensity is not linear with concentration. Scale to about 85–90% and taste up.
- Raising agents. Baking powder and soda scale roughly linearly up to a point, but a doubled batter in a deeper tin rises differently. Many bakers use around 90% when doubling.
- Baking time and tin size. Doubling a traybake into a bigger tin of the same depth barely changes the time; doubling it into the same tin makes it twice as deep and adds a great deal. Match the depth, not the volume.
- Anything you sear or fry. Double the quantity in the same pan and it steams instead of browning. Cook in two batches; the total time more than doubles.
- Evaporation. A doubled sauce in a wider pan reduces at a different rate. Judge reductions by consistency, never by the clock.
- Alcohol and acid. Wine, vinegar and citrus scale down more happily than up; taste before committing the full amount.
Halving an egg
The classic problem with halving a recipe. Beat one egg thoroughly, weigh it — a large egg is about 50 g out of shell — and use half the weight. Discarding half an unbeaten egg gives you an unpredictable mix of white and yolk, which matters in custards and enriched doughs.
Metric weights alongside
Switch on the metric option and every cup and spoon measure gets a gram figure appended, using the same ingredient density table as our grams-to-cups converter. Recognised ingredients get a weight; unrecognised ones get a volume in millilitres, which is still more useful than a fraction of a cup.
Your recipe stays in the tab
The text you paste is held in the page and nowhere else. There is no upload, no autosave to a server and no analytics event carrying the contents — which matters more than it sounds if the list you are scaling is unpublished, someone else's, or simply yours.
Questions
Does it handle fractions and ranges?
Yes. 1 1/2, 1½, 3/4 and "2-3 tbsp" are all parsed, scaled and re-rendered as fractions a measuring spoon can actually hit rather than as decimals.
What happens to lines with no quantity?
They pass through untouched. Headings, method notes and "salt to taste" stay exactly as you typed them, so the output is still a usable ingredient list.
Should I scale everything linearly?
Not quite. Salt, raising agents, strong spices and alcohol are usually scaled slightly under; baking time changes with depth rather than volume; and anything you sear needs cooking in batches once doubled. The numbers are a starting point.
Can it convert cups to grams at the same time?
Yes — switch on the metric option and each cup or spoon measure gets a gram figure appended, using the same ingredient density table as our grams-to-cups tool.
Is my recipe uploaded anywhere?
No. The text stays in the textarea in your browser. There is no server, no autosave to a cloud, and no analytics event carrying your recipe.