To make brownies in bulk, write the batter by weight as percentages, mix as much as the mixer takes, and pour the same weight into every full sheet pan, so every pan bakes in the same time. A full sheet pan holds what four 9-by-13 pans do, and cuts into 48 large brownies. Done this way, a brownie bakery that baked two 9-by-13 pans at a time makes 720 brownies in a day, and the cost of a brownie falls from $1.52 to $0.66. Below is the batter at three sizes, the steps, the bake loss, what a brownie costs at each size, and a free scaling calculator.
The short version
- Weigh every ingredient once and turn the recipe into percentages of the batter.
- Size each mix to the mixer.
- Pour the same weight into every pan: 8 pounds to a full sheet pan.
- Bake by the oven load to the same doneness, not the same color.
- Chill before cutting, and cut by measure.
- Weigh what comes out and use your real bake loss to cost a brownie.
- TaroStack keeps the recipe by weight, takes each batch's ingredients off stock and checks its yield. More below.
The recipe, by percentage
Lakeshore Brownie Co., the made-up brownie bakery in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, I use in these examples, baked two 9-by-13 pans at a time, 2 pounds of batter in each. When a café asked for 200 brownies a week, the recipe was weighed:
| Ingredient | % of the mix | Kitchen batch, 4 lb | One batch, 40 lb | The run, 120 lb | Cost a lb, bought in bulk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Granulated sugar | 33% | 1.32 lb | 13.2 lb | 39.6 lb | $0.60 |
| Eggs | 18% | 0.72 lb | 7.20 lb | 21.6 lb | $2.00 |
| Butter | 17% | 0.68 lb | 6.80 lb | 20.4 lb | $3.20 |
| All-purpose flour | 14% | 0.56 lb | 5.60 lb | 16.8 lb | $0.40 |
| Bittersweet chocolate | 12% | 0.48 lb | 4.80 lb | 14.4 lb | $5.50 |
| Cocoa powder | 5% | 0.20 lb | 2.00 lb | 6.00 lb | $4.00 |
| Vanilla extract | 0.5% | 0.02 lb | 0.20 lb | 0.60 lb | $25.00 |
| Salt | 0.5% | 0.02 lb | 0.20 lb | 0.60 lb | $0.40 |
| The whole mix | 100% | 4 lb | 40 lb | 120 lb |
The 120 pounds of batter cost $257.40 in ingredients. Sugar is a third of the weight and butter and chocolate most of the cost. How percentages work for other recipes is in scaling recipes for production.
The steps, at 120 pounds
- Melt the chocolate and butter together. In a kettle or a bain-marie, by the mix, then cooled until warm.
- Whisk the eggs and sugar. In the mixer, then the chocolate, then the flour and cocoa on low speed until combined. Three 40-pound mixes make the run.
- Weigh every pan. Eight pounds of batter to a lined full sheet pan, spread level. Fifteen pans make the run.
- Bake by the oven load. Five pans a load, turned halfway, out when a tester shows moist crumbs; every pan the same weight bakes in the same time.
- Chill, then cut. Brownies cut warm tear; chilled, a long knife or a guitar cutter gives 48 even squares a pan.
- Weigh what comes out. Over three runs, the batter loses about 10% in the oven. How to measure a yield is in batch yield formula.
- Wrap with a lot code. Each brownie wrapped and labeled with the run's lot and date.
The run takes one person about 8 hours, cutting yesterday's pans while today's bake.
What a brownie costs at each size
| Per brownie | Kitchen batch, 4 lb | Bulk run, 120 lb |
|---|---|---|
| Ingredients | $0.54 (grocery prices) | $0.36 (bought in bulk) |
| Packaging | $0.15 | $0.08 |
| Labor at $20 an hour | $0.83 (2.5 min a brownie) | $0.22 (0.7 min a brownie) |
| Cost of a brownie | $1.52 | $0.66 |
Chocolate by the 22-pound box, butter by the case and sugar by the 50-pound sack cut the ingredients by a third, and the labor falls by more than two-thirds. At the café's $2.50, a kitchen-batch brownie left 98 cents; a bulk-run brownie leaves $1.84. Pricing is in how to price homemade brownies.
The edges
Edge brownies are crisper and smaller; some bakers trim them and sell them as brownie bits, others sell them as edge pieces to the customers who ask. Either way, weigh them: trim is a loss on top of the bake loss, and it changes how many brownies a run makes. The wrapping is in how to package brownies for sale.
Get the calculator
Download the brownie scaling calculator. Two sheets: scale the recipe, where you type each ingredient's percentage and cost a pound and the raw mix you want, and each ingredient's weight for the run fills in, with the mixes, sheet pans, oven loads, what comes out after the bake loss, the brownies it fills and the cost of each brownie; and weigh the loss, where what went in and came out over a few batches gives your average bake loss. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
Brownies and blondies, a run twice a week, butter from two deliveries, and the café's order growing. A sheet can say how much chocolate a run needs, but not whether there's enough for Thursday, which butter went into which run, or whether the bake loss and trim have crept up.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps the recipe by weight, takes each batch's ingredients off stock and checks its yield.
The recipe in the units you use. A recipe holds each ingredient by weight, with chocolate bought by the 22-pound box and used by the pound, and the cost of every brownie comes from what you paid. "What could I make right now" says how many runs the chocolate, butter and eggs on the shelf allow.
Each run a batch. A run takes its ingredients off stock, records the lots of butter and eggs it used, and gets a lot of its own for the brownies, with how much came out good, how much was rejected and the labor minutes.
Yield checked from history. From your own batch history, TaroStack says whether a recipe yields what it claims and which ingredient's quantity is off, so a bake loss that creeps up shows in the numbers. A flat of cracked eggs is an adjustment with its reason, spoiled, and shows in the waste report.
| The job | Spreadsheet | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Ingredients for Thursday's run | Multiply, then check the shelf | What could I make right now |
| Which butter went into a run | Not written down | Lots recorded on the batch |
| The real bake loss | Weighed now and then | Good and rejected on every batch |
| Cracked eggs | Thrown out, forgotten | Adjustment with a reason |
Recipes, batches, lots and yield are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.