are there any recipes for small batch baking?

I am trying to look for one or two muffin recipe or a small cake or 1-6 cookies.. with no luck. any help?

I heard about the " small batch baking" book  but the recipes are not very healthy. 

post your ideas here please. Thanks.

You could easily take my black bean brownie recipe and cut it in about 1/4 or probably even smaller...you'd still have the supplies around for the rest, but if they're not mixed it takes a bit more effort to do it.

• 1 box no pudge brownie mix
• 1 can black beans (secret healthy ingredient)
• 1 cup water
• orange zest (secret ingredient that makes them wonderful)
• frozen blueberries (just a nice little extra)

I think about 1/4 or a 1/5 of the recipe would make 2 nice sized muffins.  Or you could refrigerate extra batter for the next day.

Cookies are, in my opinion, the easiest to make in small batches. Many recipes can be cut half so you only make a small batch or you can still make the entire recipe but freeze the unused portion. Try looking on Epicurious.. I love going on this site and just experimenting!

Hope this helps!

Your best bet is to find a recipe that can be easily divided and just do the math yourself.  I make half, third, and quarter batches of things all the time and most recipes can be adapted if you just put some thought into it. I rarely look for recipes that yield a small amount; I look for the recipe that looks like what I want and then adjust it to make the number of servings I want.

Eggs are usually the biggest challenge, but you can try to divide the recipe according to the quantity of eggs required (i.e. a recipe with 3 eggs should be divided in thirds) or, depending on the recipe, use an egg substitute (such as arrowroot starch and water or Eggbeaters) for half or a quarter of an egg.  I do the arrowroot starch replacement a lot in things where the original recipe called for one egg so that I don't have to go through the hassle of figuring out how to divide an egg in half or quarters.  It works well in things like cookies where the egg is used more as a binder than a leavening agent.  Obviously, this won't work for a souffle!  If you keep Eggbeaters around, though, you can probably just measure out the equivalent of part of an egg.

One tip for dividing recipes is to measure the ingredients by weight instead of volume.  It can be confusing to measure a 1/4 of 2/3 of a cup using measuring spoons and cups, but it isn't that hard to figure out the weight of 2/3 of a cup of a given ingredient, divide that weight by 4 and then use a scale to measure the quantity needed.  As a matter of fact, I increasingly do all of my measurements for cooking by weight rather than volume.

Anyway, I'd be happy to help you reduce a particular recipe if you want to share it.

I'm intrigued by the black bean brownie recipe.  It sounds so weird that it might be good.  Is it?

thanks ladies :)

Sara, I really wanna give it a try but I want to make two maybe 3 brownies only. How? How do you calculate the calories in each one? the fudge brownie mix has 12 servings and 22g of sugar and 120 cals per serving. does that mean it makes 12 brownies?? If I add the other ingredients, it will be more than 200 cals per  or brownie. Am I correct? another question about the orange zest, how do you calculate that?

Coreyander, thanks a lot. I really need help to reduce many recipes. Let me look at what I have and I will share this with you. basically, I love carrot and zucchini and would like to make one or two muffins that have some veggies. I don't know of any good healthy recipes for two muffins. if you have any ideas, that would be great.

v_avila, Thanks for the website. Yeah, I know it is great. I will try to search for some ideas. 

I've never tried to bake a small batch.  I just make the entire recipe then freeze most of it in individual portions. 

I haven't tried the black bean brownies, but hear good reports about them.  Anybody want to comment on that?

This website has a scaling facility incorporated, as well as various healthy recipes. (for example, one of my favs)

In theory, when scaling a recipe, you go by the number of eggs needed. Like if something calls for 4 eggs and makes 16 servings, you can make 4, 8, 12, or 16 servings (or more). But in practice I have successfully scaled to half an egg and used just the egg white - for the previous example, if you used just the white, you could make as little as 2 servings.

Claire, I have to learn how to bake a small batch. I simply know myself. :) I can't resist any cookies or muffins around me . if they are not around, I am fine.

that is why I want to bake one or two but it sounds like a difficult task.

Ily51, thanks for the muffin recipe, it sounds nice. yeah, I want to make only two servings. Can you reduce this muffin recipe so I can make 2 muffins?

That recipe I gave you can be reduced to a minimum of 3 muffins. I guess you can make two larger ones though..

Ingredients
2 tbsp sugar
1 egg white
1/2 medium banana
1 tbsp cup orange juice
4 tbsp grated carrot
1/2 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
pinch salt
2 tbsp Crisco, butter flavored
Directions
1
Preheat oven to 350°F.
2
In medium bowl, combine flour, soda and salt.
3
In large bowl, cream Crisco and sugar.
4
Mix in eggs and juice.
5
Using a fork or an old fashioned potato masher, mash carrots and bananas thoroughly.
6
Mix the carrots and bananas into the egg-sugar mix.
7
Stir in dry mix; stir only to moisten.
8
Put in lined muffin tins.
9
Bake at 350°F for approximately 30 minutes, until light golden.
10
To bake in microwave, bake approximately 5 minutes at 50% power for a high powered microwave; 7 minutes at 70% power for low powered microwave.

ily51 : Thanks so much. I guess i can use apple sauce instead of the shortening. I might also use splenda instead of white sugar. what do you think?

I really love the black bean brownies.  I'd do a 1/4 of the box and plan to give half away, that should give you 3 reasonably sized brownies...use muffin tins for an easier way to measure.  I generally do the zest from 2 oranges, you can very easily zest one orange and use about 1/2 of it and freeze the rest for later use or use all of it if you're really a big orange fan like I am.  It's really not a precise measurement since it's just adding a flavoring.  As far as calories go, zest doesn't have any that I'm aware of it's the fiber from the outside of the orange.  It's very strong in orange flavor, but it's not sweet or oily.

I get rave reviews of the ones with orange zest and blueberries and I'm not just saying that!  **I will ask for written testimonials next time instead of just mmmmm**

Another great site for scaling options is www.AllRecipes.com

Original Post by safina1:

ily51 : Thanks so much. I guess i can use apple sauce instead of the shortening. I might also use splenda instead of white sugar. what do you think?

I`m not an expert in baking so I say go for it, and let us know how they came out! One of the greatest advantages of small batch baking is that if you screw up you won`t have to throw away 24 muffins. xD