Dave Bell wrote:
> in her garden wrote:
>
> > First post to this newsgroup. I want a nice, generic butter cake
> > recipe that will fit into a 10" springform pan. 10" seems to be a nice
> > size to serve 8. I usually serve this type of cake plain or topped
> > with whipped cream, ice cream or fruit.
> >
> > If you either have a ready-sized recipe or you can tell me how to
> > retool my (two 8" cake pans) recipe, that would be great. Or perhaps
> > you know a website that discusses this?
>
> Well, the 10" pan relative to an 8" pan is 56% bigger.
> (10*10/8*8 = 100/64 = 1.5625)
> If it is also 25% deeper, that's almost exactly twice the volume. (1.95)
> I would use the 2-8" recipe as-is, for size.
>
> > If I were to use my (two 8" cake pans) recipe, I suspect I'd need to
> > lengthen the baking time for my recipe, but would I need to lower/raise
> > the baking temperature, too?
>
> Yes, I would lower the temp a little, say from 350F to 325F, and bake
> somewhat longer. Start checking about every 10 minutes past the original
> time, until a toothpick comes out clean...
>
> Dave

Well, um, er forgive me for butting in, but your formula above is for
square pans. To get the surface area of a round pan, the formula is pi
* r-squared. I can't write "pi" or a superscript for "squared". So, a
10" pan, 10 is the diameter, 5 is the radius, 5 squared is 25, times pi
(3.14) = 78.6 square inches

The 8" pan is 50.2 square inches (pi * 16, 4 being the radius)

The 8" is 64% of the 10 inch, not allowing for height. To get volume,
multiply the square inches of the pan by the height. So if the 8" pan
gets a 1.5" high cake, then it would have a volume of approximately
75 cubic inches. That's roughly equal to a 1" height in the 10" pan.
If you make the equivalent of 2 8" cake recipes, then a 10" pan would
have a cake height of not quite 2 inches, which would look "right" for
that size.

But, of course, it will take longer to bake, and you gotta wonder if
the sides of the 10" pan will get too well done while the inside still
needs to cook, given the same recipe. I'd suggest some of those
"baking strips" which are fabric that you wet and put around a pan to
keep the sides cooler, while the rest heats more evenly from top and
bottom.

Anyway, better living through chemistry and geometry, _this_ is why you
need math in school!
Cheers,
betsy (an engineer, could you guess that?)