Calculators

Cake converter

Nobody scales an oval in their head. Enter your 20 cm round, 8 cm tall, and switch the other cake to oval: same height, same weight, ×1.00. Type the tin you own, 26 by 18 cm, and it climbs to ×1.17. Multiply every ingredient by it and it bakes just as tall, in a shape it was never written for.

• An oval of the same weight, ×1.00
• Your tin’s length and width, the multiplier climbs
• Any shape to any shape, heart included
• Batter weight scaled along

Pan converter

The recipe calls for a 20 cm tin and you own a 25. The converter compares the bases only: 314 against 491 cm², a ratio of 1.56. Multiply every ingredient by 1.56 and pour to the same height as the recipe. Two different shapes compare the same way, by area.

• Base area against base area
• Same batter height assumed
• Square 20 cm: ×1.27 of a round

Height converter

Same tin, taller cake. The recipe bakes 8 cm high and you want a 12 cm showpiece. 12 ÷ 8 is ×1.5, so every ingredient is multiplied by 1.5 and the tin stays. The two heights are drawn side by side to one scale.

• Height against height, tin unchanged
• Both heights drawn to one scale

Cake weight

How heavy will a 20 cm cake 8 cm tall come out? Its volume is 2,513 cm³. At a classic layer cake’s 0.9 g/cm³ that is 2.26 kg. At a bare sponge’s 0.32 it is under a kilo. Pick the density on the same scale as the tiered cake designer, or type the one you measured.

• Size and density in, weight out
• Density from the cake-type scale or typed

Cake diameter

A client wants a 3 kg cake and you bake 10 cm tall at 0.9 g/cm³. The volume must be 3,000 ÷ 0.9 = 3,333 cm³. Over a 10 cm height that is 333 cm² of base, a 21 cm round. Tap the result’s unit to read it in inches.

• Target weight, density and height in
• Diameter or side out, cm or inches

Cake height

The tin is fixed this time: a 20 cm round, and the order says 2.5 kg at 0.9 g/cm³. The cake needs 2,778 cm³. The base is 314 cm², so it will stand 8.8 cm tall. Too tall for the tin, and the diameter calculator is the one to open.

• Target weight, density and footprint in
• Finished height out

Cake density

Weigh one baked cake and reuse its density everywhere. Your chocolate cake came out 20 cm across and 8 cm tall and weighed 2.8 kg. Measure the cake, not the tin. 2,800 ÷ 2,512 cm³ gives 1.11 g/cm³. That number feeds the three calculators above and any tier you build on this recipe.

• Size and weight of the baked cake in
• Density out, typed into the others

Cake dimensions

Lock what you know and it solves the rest. Your 16 cm cake is 14 cm tall and weighs 2.2 kg. The client wants it 10 cm tall. Unlock density first: 0.78 g/cm³. Then unlock the diameter, set the height to 10, and it solves to 19 cm.

• One of three values open, the rest locked
• Four worked examples in its help sheet
• Inputs remembered between visits

Common questions