MealWhim

Meal ideas & kitchen calculators

Recipe scaler

Make the recipe fit the table

Paste the ingredient list, say how many you're feeding, and get tidy amounts back: halves and thirds of a cup, sensible grams, and a note on anything it couldn't read.

Scale by

Scaled list ×1.5

Paste a list to begin.

  1. Your scaled ingredients appear here as you type.

How it reads your list

Each line is read from the start: an amount, then a unit if there is one, then the food. It understands whole numbers, decimals (1.5 or 1,5), fractions (1/2, 1 1/2, 1-1/2 and ½ ¼ ⅓ ⅔ ¾ ⅛), ranges (2-3, 2 to 3), words such as a, half and a dozen, and units from teaspoons and cups to grams, ounces, fluid ounces, sticks of butter, cloves, tins and pinches. Tin sizes like 1 (14 oz) can or 2 x 400g tins stay the same size; only the number of tins changes.

Amounts are rounded the way cooks measure: eighths and thirds for cups and spoons, with 6 teaspoons becoming 2 tablespoons and ⅜ cup becoming 6 tablespoons, and grams and millilitres to the nearest 5 once they pass 50. When you convert, spoons stay spoons, cups become millilitres and ounces become grams. If a line already gives both, like 1 cup (120 g) flour, the recipe's own figure is used. A cup of flour converts to a volume, not a weight; for grams, use the cups to grams converter.

Anything it can't read with confidence, such as 1 cup plus 2 tbsp or a temperature, is highlighted and left exactly as you wrote it.

Questions

Should I scale baking times and pan sizes too?

Not by the same factor. A doubled cake needs a bigger tin or two tins, and the baking time changes with the depth of the batter, so check it early and often. Spices and salt are best scaled a little under and adjusted to taste.

What about half an egg?

The scaler shows halves honestly. Beat the egg, then use about half of it by weight or volume, or round to the nearest whole egg if the recipe is forgiving.

Are UK and US measures the same?

Teaspoons and tablespoons are close enough for cooking. Pints are not: a US pint is 473 ml and a UK pint 568 ml, so choose which one your recipe means before converting.