Small Batch Cookies, Cakes & Muffins That Actually Work

Hello and welcome to this episode of happy baking. In this episode I want to tackle a subject you all have requested in the comments of my past videos. Small batch baking. This has been especially trendy in recent years with tons of internet recipes and even whole cookbooks devoted to the subject. And it makes a lot of sense. Smaller batches means less expense, less waste, and if you live alone or with just a few people, it means you're not needing to Though I kind of like pawning it off on my neighbors but you know we'll save that for another time. But I want to do more in this episode than hand you a few delicious small batch recipes. Instead I also want to teach you how to successfully reduce the batch size of a recipe. This way you can try it without fear on any of your favorite recipes. I'm going to teach you a few different ways to adjust recipes and portion sizes and yes we're going to do a little math along the way. And for those of you who just want all the work done for you of course I've prepared several delicious small batch recipes to share as well. Let's dive into a not so small episode full of small batch baking info. Let's get baking. First a note on small batch baking. But before I begin I must stand on my small batch soapbox or in this case apple box for just a moment. As much as I understand the appeal of small batch baking there are just some recipes that don't make sense to small batchify in my opinion. One example would be anything complex where it might actually complicate it to make too small of a batch and where you might as well get plenty of product for the effort being put into the bake. Another example would be anything that freezes particularly well either before baking so that it can be baked fresh on demand or after baking so it can be thawed and refreshed whenever you like. Some great examples that fall into both categories are things like puff pastry, croissants and macarons. And I know that not everyone has endless freezer storage space but it can be fun to spend time baking and then have a stash of something special to enjoy over a few weeks or months. And by the way my new book Bake Anything comes out this fall. It has tons of tips for freezing and storing baked goods so you can get the most out of every baking project. So what are the best kinds of recipes to make in a small batch? Easy recipes for one. Simple things that can be thrown together especially quickly is a real plus in small batch baking. And then really anything that's best served fresh from the oven. The recipes I'm making in this episode fall into both categories because there's nothing like a warm apple pastry, just baked parker house rolls or freshly made cookies. If you'd rather eat it warm or right away that is a great candidate for small batch baking in my book. If you have questions or small batch recipes you want to request let me know in the comments. Okay off my apple box. I've said enough. Lesson one, the basics. There are a few recipes that are naturally easier to adjust. Many simple recipes can be adjusted to make smaller sizes with no real issues. Sometimes it can be nice to opt out of adjusting the batch size and instead just opt for a smaller bake size. A few examples, baking a banana bread recipe in mini loaf pans, baking a cake recipe as cupcakes or making mini galettes. In these situations you don't even have to mess with changing the recipe and can opt to save or freeze your mini leftovers to enjoy as future treats. When you're doing this without guidance from a recipe writer it's important to remember that size adjustments are going to impact bake time. Instead of following the time cues given in the recipe, focus on the visual cues provided. Things like bake until the filling is bubbly and the crust is deeply golden brown or bake until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Bake until the pastry springs back gently when touched in the very center. So here are some examples of what I'm talking about. First I'm going to make some mini apple galettes. I did go ahead and formulate a recipe with just enough pastry and fruit for a single portion but that's because all I need to do is change the size of the dough. I rolled the dough to about eight inches or 20 centimeters wide to make sure there's plenty of room for filling and then with the edges folded over the filling it's about six inches or 15 centimeters. Remember it will shrink some more as it bakes and make a nice individual pastry, about the size of a danish. I also made a mini chocolate cake recipe. This recipe is for a single six inch 15 centimeter cake layer. You can frost the surface of the cake and it'll be sort of like a snacking cake and you can cut slivers or hefty slices, whatever you like. Or you can actually make yourself a mini layer cake by cutting the cake in half and sandwiching the two layers together with frosting. You will need to crumb coat it to make sure it fully stays together and then fully frost the whole thing. This will make three to four small slices of cake. Okay, time to level up. Also known as the math is mathing. Okay, now let's talk about the art of small batchifying and how you can adjust a recipe yourself. This is actually pretty easy to do especially if you measure by weight. In fact, get a kiddo in your life involved. They can help you convert the recipe and then you can both enjoy the delicious rewards afterwards. It's no surprise that I prefer scaling by weight instead of volume. It's by far the most accurate way to bake. So of course it's also the most accurate way to adjust batch size. All you need to do is some simple math on each ingredient weight. Say you want to make a biscuit recipe that says it makes 12 but you only want four biscuits. Four is one third of 12. So you can divide the weight of each ingredient by three. So for example 300 grams of flour divided by three would become 100 grams. Easy enough. This works great when the number is clean like this but of course it isn't always. So let's take a more complicated example. Say a recipe makes nine biscuits and you only want two biscuits. You'll need to divide the number you want by the original batch size. So in this case two divided by nine equals 0.2222 and so on. So now I have this number and I need to multiply this number by the weight of each ingredient. So let's take that same 300 grams multiply it by 0.222. We would get 66.666. So we can round that up to become 67 grams of flour. With weight measures you just do the math and then scale this new number even though I hate it. Now let's try what happens if you use volume measures because I've got news for you. It gets messy really quickly. Again it's easy sometimes. So say you have a recipe that calls for half cup of butter. That's also eight tablespoons. If we wanted to divide that in half obviously it would be a quarter cup or four tablespoons. That's easy but lots of times it's not going to be so easy. Say we want to divide a half cup by three. Suddenly we have a really odd number that isn't a standard volume measure. So you can see already why I prefer using weight. It's so easy. You do the math. You scale that exact number. With volume it gets trickier but if you insist on using volume measures here's a few conversions that can be helpful to know. One cup equals 16 tablespoons and one cup also equals eight fluid ounces. One tablespoon equals three teaspoons and one fluid ounce equals two tablespoons. When the numbers aren't clean it gets a bit more difficult than it is with weight. They're only a set number of standard volume measures. Rounding up or down to the nearest measure can create pretty significant differences. So say a recipe calls for five tablespoons and I want to divide it in half. Suddenly I have the half is two tablespoons and plus one and a half teaspoons. I'm infuriated just thinking about this. What a horrible way to measure. We're gonna have to get so many things out and even so we may not end up with an accurate measure. The main takeaway here using weight is so much easier and the ratio stays intact making it more likely for your small batch bake to turn out true to the original. Okay lucky for you I've already done plenty of math to make four delicious small batch recipes so let's see all of this in practice. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode where we talked all about small batch baking. There are so many yummy recipes that I made in this episode. I've got of course our that makes just one. We have the delicious blueberry muffins that makes two. These scones that can be made with anything. I chose to make them savory scones with some cheddar cheese that makes three. And then of course we have sugar cookies and fluffy parker house rolls that each make four. Oh and I almost forgot my perfect tiny little six inch chocolate cake. Let's see I can't I can't deny a parker house roll. Soft and fluffy and buttery. That little bit of salt on top. This is such a perfect thing to make in a small batch because they're best when they're fresh and toasty and warm. I love this a huge bakery style cookie but the recipe only makes four. It's gonna be nice and chewy look at that. It's a nice bend that's how you know you got some chew. This is such a good recipe for when you want something sweet and you don't have anything in the house and you just need something ASAP. You can get all the delicious recipes you see in this video linked in the video description below or on my website erinjeanmcdowell.com. Be sure to follow me on social media you can find me at emcdowell on instagram at erinjmcdowell on tiktok and as erinjeanmcdowell on facebook. Also be sure to check out my sub stack there are free exclusive recipes there coming out each month and if this episode inspires you to do some small batch baking please let me know. Use hashtag happy baking or tag me in your posts on social media. I love to see what you're making in your kitchens. Until next time I'll wish you lots of happy small batch baking. A galette for one.