How to convert pan sizes in baking

It’s inevitable: after searching for just the right recipe, you come to the instructions and find out that it calls for a 9-inch square tin and all you have is an 8-inch pan. Do you a) do the math to change the recipe, b) press your luck and use the smaller pan, or c) scroll down to the next recipe? If your answers are either b or c, then you may want to head over to Food52. Baking doyenne Alice Medrich is offering advice on how to adapt recipes to fit your pan.

While math is involved, it is not overly complicated (no algebra!). The article includes a handy reference chart that shows the area of various pan sizes so you don’t have to do the math in your head (sorry metric-using folks, the chart is only in inches). In addition to provide guidelines for scaling recipes, Medrich provides tips on how to make fractions of eggs work (a kitchen scale is essential), and advice on when you might want to break the rules. For a birthday cake, for instance, she will “round up” when multiplying the ingredients to end up with a taller cake, which she finds more esthetically pleasing.

Perhaps the most valuable advice does not involve math at all. Medrich describes pitfalls that might arise from changing pan sizes and how to avoid them. For instance, you might need a longer baking time if you try to make that standout tall birthday cake.

Photo of Alice Medrich’s best cocoa brownies from Food52 by Alice Medrich