Recipe costing for pastry chefs

You have 600g of chocolate. How many cakes can you make?

Enter how much you have in stock. KitchenDesk scales the recipe, tells you how many portions you can make, and what each one costs.

Free up to 15 recipes No credit card Start with one recipe
Scale any recipeBy portion count, or by what you have in stock
One price, every recipeChange a price once. Every cost updates.
Recipes inside recipesBuild finished products from your own components
Bulk importLoad a full recipe library in one go
01
Need 12? Need 320?
Same one second.

Most chefs scale by hand. Calculator, paper, and a number that has to be right.

Type the number of portions you need. Every quantity updates. The cost updates with it.

Or do it the other way round. Tell KitchenDesk you have 600g of chocolate left. It tells you how many portions that makes, and what each one costs.

Chocolate Fondant Tart · scaling
Chocolate Fondant Tart 12 portions base
Scale to
portions
Original: 12 portions ×2
IngredientPer 12For 24
Dark chocolate 70%320g640g
Unsalted butter175g350g
Heavy cream240ml480ml
Eggs4 pc8 pc
Flour T55120g240g
Cost per portion$1.20
Total cost$28.82
Ingredient Valrhona · 2026
Dark chocolate 70%
$ / kg
used in
Recipe
Chocolate ganache
Dark chocolate 70% · 200g $5.60
Heavy cream · 150ml $0.48
Butter · 30g $0.27
Food cost 28.9%
Total cost $6.35
used in
Recipe
Entremets au chocolat
Chocolate ganache · 1 batch $6.35
Dacquoise base · 1 base $8.20
Mirror glaze · 200g $3.15
Food cost 27.2%
Total cost $17.70
The core idea

One price change.
Every recipe updated.

Your chocolate supplier raises the price. You change it once, on the ingredient.

Every recipe using that chocolate updates its cost. So does every recipe built from those recipes.

Food cost percentages update too. Any recipe that stops making money turns orange, then red. You do not have to go looking for it.

No re-typing numbers. No searching for which recipe uses what.

02
One caramel.
Used in six products.

You make a salted caramel. It goes inside a tart, an entremet and a cake. You also sell it in jars.

In KitchenDesk it is one recipe. Put it inside any other recipe, as many times as you want. There is no separate ingredient version to keep updated.

Change the caramel once and every product that contains it updates its cost.

Chocolate Caramel Cake
Chocolate Caramel Cake Recipe
Contains Qty Cost
Sponge base 180g $2.10
Salted caramel 130g $0.64
Sugar60g$0.12
Cream45ml$0.29
Butter24g$0.22
Salt1g$0.01
Chocolate glaze 100g $1.90
Total cost$4.64
Day to day
Tomorrow's prep, in one list

Choose the recipes you are making and how many batches of each. KitchenDesk adds up every ingredient across all of them.

Three recipes using butter become one line of butter. Your team collects everything once.

Preparation list · adjust batches
Financiers
2
Chocolate ganache tart
1
Almond cake
1
Butter390g
Almond powder450g
Eggs12 pc
Caster sugar450g
Dark chocolate200g
Total cost $25.01
Know who supplies what

Every ingredient is linked to its supplier, with contact details and price.

If a delivery is late, you can see straight away which products are affected.

Suppliers
V
Valrhona
valrhona.com · Premium chocolate supplier
Dark chocolate 70%4 recipes $31.00/kg
Cocoa powder2 recipes $18.50/kg
Cocoa butter1 recipe $42.00/kg
Last price update: 28 May 2026  ·  6 recipes affected
Who it is for

Made for pastry work.

Normal software asks you to choose: is this a recipe, or is it an ingredient? In a pastry kitchen it is often both. KitchenDesk was built around that.

01
Solo pastry chefs

You set the prices and you make the products. Know your real cost before you decide what to charge, not months later.

02
Chefs in hotels and restaurants

Your recipes are your own work. Keep them in a private space that belongs to you, and that stays with you when you move on.

03
Small pâtisseries

Your whole team works from the same numbers. Costs stay visible, prep lists stay correct, and nobody is working from an old file.

Built in a real kitchen.

KitchenDesk started as our own problem. One of us runs a cake shop. The other is a pastry chef who was running everything on spreadsheets and an old program that barely worked.

We built the tool we needed. Every feature in it comes from a real working day.

Getting started

Yes, it takes some work.
You only do it once.

Your recipes have to go in before the numbers come out. There is no way around that. But you do not have to do all of it before it becomes useful.

01
Start with one recipe

Enter one product and its ingredients. You immediately know what it costs you. Nothing else needs to be ready.

02
Build up as you go

Every ingredient you enter stays available for the next recipe. The more you add, the faster each new recipe becomes.

03
Or bring the whole library at once

On a paid plan, download the KitchenDesk template, fill it in, and import everything in a single step. It takes an evening or two for a large collection, and then it is done.

After that, nothing needs re-entering. Prices change in one place and every recipe follows.

Pricing

Own your recipe library.
Pay for what you use.

No training fees. No setup fees. No contract.

Monthly
Annual Save up to 30%
Free
$ 0
Enough to test it properly with your own products.
  • Up to 15 recipes
  • 1 user
  • Full cost calculation
  • Supplier management
  • Prep lists
Get started free
Team
$ 35 /mo
 
  • Unlimited recipes
  • Up to 5 users
  • Role-based access (Admin, Editor, Viewer)
  • Supplier management
  • Prep lists
  • Excel bulk import
Get started

Billed monthly · Cancel anytime

Have a large recipe collection? Bulk import is included in every paid plan. Fill in our template once and load everything in a single step.

FAQ

Questions

Can I import the Excel file I already use?

Not directly. Every chef's spreadsheet is built differently, so we give you a KitchenDesk template to fill in instead. It is a clear, step by step format. Filling it in takes time, but you do it once, and then the whole library loads in a single import.

KitchenDesk checks the entire file before anything is created: duplicates, missing information, ingredients it cannot find. You fix problems on screen, not in your data.

How long before it is useful?

One recipe. Enter it and you know what it costs. Every ingredient you add makes the next recipe faster to build.

Are my recipes private?

Yes. Your workspace is completely separate. No other business can see your data, and nobody sees it unless you invite them.

Can I use it on my phone?

Yes. KitchenDesk is a web app. Open it in any browser on your phone, tablet or computer. Nothing to download, nothing to install.

Know what your kitchen really costs.

Free up to 15 recipes. No credit card needed.