Chocolate scaling calculator
Scales a chocolate quantity up or down, and flags where scaling does not behave linearly.
400g chocolate — a factor of 2
Everything else in the recipe that is proportional to the chocolate scales by the same factor.
What does not scale
- Baking times do not scale with quantity. A double batch in one tin is not a double bake time.
- Equipment does not scale. A ganache four times the size needs proportionally more surface area to cool evenly, not four times as long in the same bowl.
- Ratios scale; techniques do not. The method stays the same at every size.
What this cannot tell you
- Tempering does not scale linearly. Small quantities lose heat far faster than large ones, and below about 300g hand tempering becomes considerably harder.
- Baking times do not scale with quantity, and the tool does not attempt to adjust them.
- Scaling a recipe does not scale the equipment. A ganache four times the size needs a proportionally larger surface area to cool evenly.
Tempering is the case that does not scale down
A small mass of chocolate loses heat far faster than a large one, so below roughly 300g hand tempering becomes considerably harder regardless of technique. That is a physical limit rather than a matter of skill — see tempering chocolate.