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Recipe Scaling Calculator: Resize Ingredients by Servings

Resize a recipe from its original servings to the amount you need. The local parser handles decimals, fractions, mixed numbers, Unicode fractions, and ranges while preserving lines it cannot safely scale.

Scale the ingredients, not every instruction

The multiplier is target servings divided by original servings. A recipe written for four and resized to six uses a 1.5× multiplier on each quantified ingredient.

Lines such as “salt to taste” or “butter for the pan” contain judgement rather than a measurable starting quantity. The calculator preserves and labels them instead of inventing an amount.

Readable kitchen measurements

The output rounds to familiar culinary fractions so a result can be measured with ordinary cups and spoons. For baking, weighing ingredients remains more repeatable than repeatedly rounding volume measurements.

Cooking time does not scale linearly with servings. A larger batch of soup, a deeper cake, and two trays of cookies respond differently, so the tool deliberately leaves time and temperature alone.

multiplier=target servingsoriginal servingsmultiplier=\frac{target\ servings}{original\ servings}
scaled quantity=original quantity×multiplierscaled\ quantity=original\ quantity\times multiplier

Examples

Four servings to six

Input

2 cups flour; 4 original servings; 6 target servings

Show result

Result

3 cups flour at a 1.5× multiplier

Halve a recipe

Input

1 1/2 tsp baking powder; 8 original servings; 4 target servings

Show result

Result

3/4 tsp baking powder

Frequently Asked Questions

Does it understand fractions?

Yes. It accepts common typed, mixed, and Unicode fractions such as 1/2, 1 1/2, and ¾.

Why was an ingredient left unchanged?

The line did not begin with a quantity the parser could safely recognize. It is preserved so you can adjust it manually.

Should cooking time be doubled when ingredients are doubled?

Usually not. Time depends on depth, surface area, equipment, and the food itself, so this calculator does not guess.

References

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