How do I know if I can double, triple or quadruple a recipe for caramels?
I have a really good recipe for caramels, everyone raves about them, so I am thinking about selling them to the public. But the recipe I have only makes an 8 x 8 inch pan of caramels and they take a looong time to make. Does anyone know how to know if the recipe can be doubled, tripled or quadrupled short of actually having to do that.
Best Answer
The short answer is yes, but I would do it by weight and absolutely not by volume.
A lot depends on how many times you are scaling up your recipe. With high viscosity materials, mixing small amounts is trivial, but with large enough amounts, the geometry of your mixing vessel and the type of hook/blade/impeller all matter, and matter to the point the sometimes the recipe itself needed changing. It is all about mass transfer. The same with heat transfer during cooking, hot spots and uneven temperature distribution are common problems. Without knowing the specifics, it would not be possible to calculate what "large enough" is. Twice is probably fine. Quadruple the batch, you might want to look out for mixing and heating issues.
A bit off-topic, when it comes to the economics of making a recipe into a business, allowances for wastage, measurement inaccuracies, ingredient and product losses do pile up when scaled up. These are unnoticeable in a small batch in a home kitchen. Hygiene when scaled up becomes disproportionately effect and cost intensive too. Budgeting errors lurk everywhere even for very experienced finance minded people. Underestimating power consumption is also common.
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Can you double caramel recipe?
Regular Caramel: If you want to make regular caramel, reduce salt to 1/2 teaspoon. Do not leave it out completely. Larger Batches: Avoid doubling or tripling this recipe. The added volume could prevent the sugar from melting evenly and properly.Why is doubling a candy recipe not suggested?
Can I double my candy recipes? No, we do not recommend doubling candy recipes. The extra ingredients may prevent the mixture from cooking properly.When you double a recipe do you double the baking time?
6. Cooking and baking time will be different. When you double a batch of cookies it doesn't take double the time to bake them, it just makes more of them. Doubling a cake will make it take longer to bake, but it won't double the time.How much longer do you cook when doubling?
Multiply by 1.25 the original amount in order to calculate the new amount in the doubled recipe. Remember that you can always add more heat, but you cannot take it away once added. Fats.Caramel Recipe
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