Converting to a Common Unit of Measure

For some ingredients, straightforward multiplication or division is all that is needed. To increase a formula for poached pears from five servings to fifty, for example, you would simply multiply five pears by ten; no further adjustments are necessary. But once you have converted them, some other ingredient amounts may need some fine-tuning. You may need to round off a result or convert it to the most logical unit of measure. And measures for ingredients such as thickeners, spices, seasonings, and leavenings, for example, should not always be simply multiplied or divided. If a formula that makes six 6-in/15-cm cakes requires 1/2 oz/14 g of baking powder, it is not necessarily true that you will need 3 oz/90 g of baking powder to leaven six times the amount of the same batter if you are mixing it all in one batch. In such cases, the only way to be sure is to test the new formula and adjust it until you are satisfied with the result.