My MIL has asked me to help her make 700 cupcakes for an event that she is organizing. We need 600-700 cupcakes and we need help figuring out how much frosting to make. We plan to make the frosting and cupcakes all ahead of time and frost on sight to keep us from needing to transport so many cupcake already frosted. We will have plenty of time on sight and several people who know what they are doing helping to pipe and place sprinkles.
But that means that we can’t whip up an extra batch if we run out. So we really need to be sure we have enough. What can we do to figure out how much we will need?
by blt205
10 Comments
I would make a batch of the same frosting you plan on using. Then I would use a kitchen scale, put a bowl large enough to fit the whole batch, zero the empty bowl, then put the whole batch of frosting in it, record the weight of the batch. Then take the bowl off. Place a piece of parchment on it, zero it out, then pipe the basic low swirl. See how much that weighs, then multiply by 725 (just to be safe). This will tell you how much frosting you need to prepare. Once you have that number, you’ll divide what a normal batch weighs. That number will be how many batches you’ll need to make. I hope this makes sense!
i think you could do it by how many tablespoons each swirl is and measure how many tablespoons in a regular batch of frosting that you’re going to use. or just get a container of betty crocker – see how much each swirl is in tablespoons- and figure out how much a batch of your frosting makes? definitely bring way more than you think you will need or have someone on standby to go get more betty crocker.
Love those cupcakes.
Make a small batch of frosting, put a bowl on your kitchen scales, tare the scales, then add all the small batch of frosting. For the sake of my math skills we’ll say you’ve made 500 grams.
Now zero out your scales again, pipe a perfect 1M swirl on some baking paper, and weigh it. Let’s say this is 10 grams.
If A is the weight of 1 batch of frosting, B is the weight of 1 swirl, solve for y.
B × 700 = X
X ÷ A = Y
So this would be
10 × 700 = 7000,
7000÷500=14
So you would theoretically need to make your frosting batch 14 times. When talking such large amounts, always make 2 extra batches, bringing it to 16. Anyway put your own measurements into the equation and see what comes out!
Damn, people using math like I hadn’t considered. I would have said to make a single batch, pipe the entire batch onto parchment (then scrape it back into a bowl of course) to see how many swirls it made then divide 700 by that number and round up a little. You all are a lot smarter than me.
like others have said, make a sample batch, see how much you use and how many you have frosted and multiply from there, good luck!!
First off pipe how much frosting you’re planning on using on 7 cupcakes. Take that amount and weigh it using a food scale. Take the weight and multiply it by 100. Then multiply that by 1.5 or a bit more (the reason you do this is to have some extra in case of anything unexpected happening like heavy piping or dropping some icing).
This is the best way that I can come up with to do this.
Most of my cupcakes are similar swirl size (if that’s a thing) and 1 batch of ABC (250g butter/500g icing sugar) covers 24 perfectly.
Figure out how much frosting you need for one cupcake. Then X 700. Simple math. Then make 10 X extra of the frosting so you don’t risk running out. Good luck, I hope they turn out great.
Many of the kitchen scales are rather imprecise when it comes to small masses. So I would put 10 cupcakes without the frosting on a scale, weigh them, frost them and then weigh again. Divide the difference by 10, then multiply by 700 plus 10-15% extra.