Food - Drink
What Ina Garten Does Before Doubling A Recipe
By LAUREN ROTHMAN
Doubling recipes to prepare extra food is something many home cooks are familiar with, but sometimes our calculations can be off, which is especially troublesome when baking. Fortunately for us, the Barefoot Contessa Ina Garten has a great strategy to ensure that your double batch of baked goods will turn out successfully.
Garten notes that doubling a batch of treats by multiplying each ingredient by two won’t give you a consistent outcome. Garten bakes her first double batch following the multiplication method, notes the outcome, makes adjustments, and keeps baking until she perfects the recipe; if this sounds like a lot of work to you, we have some more tips.
When baking double batches of cakes, muffins, and quick breads, leavening agents can be the trickiest ingredient to double correctly, not to mention one of the most important ingredients overall. The Kitchn recommends using 1 ¼ teaspoons of baking powder or a ¼ teaspoon of baking soda per 1 cup of flour in your doubled recipe.
If your recipe calls for both baking powder and soda, it's likely because there's an acidic ingredient in your recipe as well, so add an extra ¼ to ½ teaspoon of baking soda per 1 cup of the acidic ingredient. As long as you measure your ingredients by weight, not volume, and mind your leavening ratios, your double batches should turn out well.