How much cake batter do I need? Our new free batter calculator works it out

You have a tin, a recipe and a hunch. Mix too little batter and the cake bakes thin and dry, mix too much and it domes, spills over the rim or leaves you with a bowl of leftovers. Knowing how much batter you actually need takes the guesswork out of every bake.

Open the free Batter Calculator

How much batter fills a tin?

A tin holds its base area multiplied by its height. A 20 cm round tin that is 5 cm deep holds about 1,571 ml when filled to the brim, but nobody fills a cake tin to the brim, because the batter rises as it bakes.

How full should you fill it?

• Half full (50%): light, very airy batters that rise a lot, such as a whisked sponge or a chiffon cake
• Two thirds full (67%): the safe choice for most cakes, including Victoria sponge, carrot cake and lemon drizzle
• Three quarters full (75%): dense bakes that barely rise, such as brownies and rich fruit cakes

So a 20 cm round tin that is 5 cm deep, filled two thirds full, takes about 1,047 ml of batter, which is roughly 943 g. Batter is a little lighter than water because of the air whisked into it, so we estimate about 0.9 g for every ml.

Batter for cupcakes and muffins

Cupcake cases come in three common sizes. Filled two thirds full, each one takes roughly:

• Mini case: about 20 ml, or 18 g of batter
• Standard case: about 53 ml, or 48 g of batter
• Jumbo muffin case: about 120 ml, or 108 g of batter

That means a batch of 12 cupcakes in standard cases needs around 640 ml of batter, and six jumbo muffins need around 720 ml.

Putting it together with your recipe

Once you know how much batter you need, compare it with what your recipe makes. If you need more or less, scale every ingredient by the same amount. Baking in several tins at once is easy too: just enter the number of tins and the calculator multiplies for you.

Try the free calculator

Choose cake tins or cupcakes, enter the size of your tin or the number of cases, pick how full to fill them and see the batter you need in millilitres and grams. It works in centimetres or inches, for round, square and rectangular tins. It is free and needs no sign-up.

Open the free Batter Calculator