I am trying to make a 10X recipe of a cooked pudding. It uses flour and corn starch as a thickener. I scaled up the ingredients proportionally, but it is not as thick. Any recommendations on how better to scale the ingredients? Is the sugar interfering with the gel? Do I need to change the ratio of the thickeners? Should the proportions be different? Any thoughts?
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1How did you scale up the size of your pan and/or the heat going into the pan? – Joe Jun 03 '16 at 18:23
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... or cook it in a few batches. – derobert Jun 03 '16 at 18:44
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Original recipe was in a 3 qt sauce pan over 1 burner. For the 10x I use a professional 20 x 22" roasting pan over 4 burners. The larger pan let's me get more surface area for the increased volume. – I luv food chemistry Jun 05 '16 at 00:35
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I currently am cooking multiple batches, but since I need to make it often, at some point I really need something that is scaled up. – I luv food chemistry Jun 05 '16 at 00:51
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You could run 4 pots with doubled recipes to get 8x at one time. Try the recipe doubled and tripled and see how it comes out. – Batman Jul 06 '16 at 05:51
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Scaling out a recipe is often more difficult than just "multiplying" the ingredients. In the Book Ratio they have a chapter on Custard:
The standard ratio is bedrock, 2 to 1; 16 ounces milk blended with 8 ounces (4 large) eggs will result in 24 ounces of an excellent custard. Large eggs are about 2 ounces each, which makes custards easy to manage without a recipe: a cup of milk and 2 eggs, or ½ cup of milk and 1 egg. But 1 large egg will set three-quarters of a cup of milk into a perfect custard. So, as with all ratios, and recipes, it can vary. If you intend to turn the custard out and it needs to hold its shape, stick with the basic ratio. Extra yolks are often added for texture and richness. The quantity of sugar and the quantity of fat also affect the final outcome. If you’re using a lot of sugar, you may need to add a little more protein for structure. If you’re using only heavy cream, you may need less.
Ruhlman, Michael. Ratio (Kindle Locations 3475-3481). Simon & Schuster, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
Simply doubling a recipe is usually pretty straight forward...the more you scale upwards the more 'out of alignment' your ratios become (particularly where eggs are involved).
Without your base recipe I have to warn 'your mileage' may vary' So be prepared to tweak it to your taste.
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Yes, this is my concern exactly. Thanks for the reference and insight. This is an eggless recipe. It roughly has a 1:1 wt. ratio milk:sugar. It has a flour/cornstarch mixture to thicken. The combo is about 20% of the amount of sugar (about 12.5% flour, 8% corn starch). So to your note about protein, maybe I need to increase the amount of thickener. Any idea or guess as to how much before one can taste the thickener? The scale of liquid is a gallon of milk. I've also considered reducing the sugar thinking that maybe it is interfering with thickening. Any thoughts to either direction? – I luv food chemistry Jun 05 '16 at 00:49