Halve a Recipe

This page opens the recipe scaler preconfigured to cut a recipe in half — the servings fields are set so every leading quantity is multiplied by 0.5. Halving is the most common rescale there is: a recipe for four when you cook for two, a full cake when you only need a small one, or a first careful test of an unfamiliar dish before committing all the ingredients.

Halving by hand is where fraction mistakes happen: half of 1 1/2 tablespoons is ¾ tablespoon, half of ¾ cup is ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons, and half an egg is a genuine judgement call. The scaler does the fraction arithmetic for you and rounds cup and spoon amounts to the nearest quarter, so the output reads like a recipe, not like a calculator tape. Lines without a leading number, such as "salt to taste", are passed through with an honest not-scaled mark.

Two things to watch when halving: reduce the pan size as well, or the thinner layer will cook faster than the original timing suggests, and taste before adding the full half-measure of salt — small batches concentrate seasoning mistakes. Odd items that resist halving, like a single egg, are usually better kept whole with a small reduction in liquid elsewhere.