02161 Converting a home recipe to a quantity cooking recipe
The more you know, the more you can create. There's no end to imagination in the kitchen. — Julia Child via Lynn Gilbert
Quantity cooking is a way to save time in the kitchen by using a freezer to store prepared foods and meals.
You set aside an afternoon, or a day, or some other time frame, and you prepare a large amount of food.
Then you freeze the food for “fast and easy” meals later. This is popularly known as the “Once a Month Cooking Method,” although it more often is a “Once a Week” method.
As with anything else, it is best to start small and work your way into bigger projects as you acquire more expertise and experience.
If you decide to use quantity cooking as a way to increase the economy of your home kitchen, there are many sources for recipes and techniques. Just do an internet search for “Once a Month Cooking.”
You probably have some favorite recipes that you would like to convert to quantity cooking. A general rule of thumb is that except for baked goods (breads, pies, cakes, etc.) you can increase a recipe up to four times the original amounts with good success. See this resource —
Adapting home recipes for quantity cooking.
http://www.ellenskitchen.com/bigpots/homekit1.html
Baked goods like pies, cakes, breads, and etc. cannot be multiplied by their volume measurements. You might get away with doubling a recipe for biscuits or bread. Anything more than that requires the use of weights instead of volume measurements. To multiply a baking recipe, measure the weight of the ingredients and multiply the weights by the number of times you wish to increase the recipe. If a recipe calls for 8 cups flour, 2 eggs, 2 cups milk, 1 tablespoon of yeast, etc. . . you first weigh the flour, eggs, yeast, and milk. If your 8 cups of flour weigh 2.5 pounds, and you want to multiply the recipe four times, you would need 10 pounds of flour, not 32 cups.
How to measure ingredients
http://www.baking911.com/howto/measure.htm A comprehensive look at how to measure ingredients for baking.
Calculators
Sites with calculators to convert recipe quantities and ingredients.
Volume conversions http://www.onlineconversion.com/cooking_volume.htm
Weight to volume conversions http://www.onlineconversion.com/weight_volume_cooking.htm
Butter conversions http://www.onlineconversion.com/cooking_butter.htm
Oven temperature conversions http://www.onlineconversion.com/cooking_gasmark.htm
US to Metric (and Metric to US) Conversions http://www.convert-me.com/en/convert/cooking
Weights and measures http://www.cooks.com/rec/convert/
Recipe calculator
Use this calculator to automatically increase or decrease ingredient quantities to half, double, or triple your recipe.
http://www.fruitfromwashington.com/Recipes/scale/recipeconversions.php
Butter to olive oil conversions http://www.goodcooking.com/conversions/butt_oil.htm