Is this some kind of Easy-Bake Oven for adults? "A magazine editor I know calls it 'toy' food," admits Maugans Nakos, author of "Small-Batch Baking" (Workman, $13.95), a new soft-cover cookbook featuring 225 downsized desserts.

Miniature doesn't have to mean made from a mix or baked with a light bulb.

Instead, the petite-food writer and stylist from Birmingham, Ala., has created decadent versions of our favorite desserts — just less of them. Say, two tarts, two or three muffins or a half-dozen cookies per batch.

Think of the recipes as a smidgen of portion control in an era of supersize-me indulgences. With ever-expanding waistlines and ever-shrinking households, Maugans Nakos decided it was time to crunch the numbers.

She discovered the average cookbook recipe yields 6 to 8 servings, but the average household has just 2.71 people. Clearly the time was right for someone to figure out how to cut down the pies, cobblers, muffins and breads we crave to a more manageable size.

A recipe developer for Fannie Flagg's popular "Whistle Stop Cafe Cookbook" and a frequent contributor to a range of publications, including Shape, American Health and Southern Living, Maugans Nakos got to work.

As the mother of two daughters, Jessie Kate, 18, and Eleni, 4, Maugans Nakos quickly noticed that both girls usually wound up satisfying their craving for sweets after eating just one brownie, cookie or cupcake.

Can-do spirit

Even in the wake of an obesity epidemic, few magazines address cooking for two, and even fewer address the subject of baking for a small household. So it should come as no surprise that when Maugans Nakos went to kitchen stores to find equipment, she discovered a world of jumbo muffin pans the size of Texas.

"The first thing I noticed when I went to the store was there is no small-batch baking industry, so I decided to use my own creativity," she says.

Maugans Nakos found inspiration in a can. After she recalled she had baked small cakes in a soup can for her own baby shower, she simply removed the label and lid of a soup can, washed it in a dishwasher and turned it into an improvised cake pan.

Four-inch tart pans for cheesecakes and pies were the only accessory she added to her kitchen battery of pots of pans. She found a loaf pan could substitute for a jellyroll pan when making a roulade and a jumbo muffin pan could stand in for a tube pan when baking angel food cake.

Instead of approaching Shirley Corriher or Harold McGee, food scientists known in the industry for helping chefs make sense of the chemistry in recipes, she read Rose Levy Beranbaum's "Cake Bible" for background, then tested the recipes for her own cookbook by trial and error.

"I'm real aware of what people might want to cook but less concerned with chemistry," Maugans Nakos says with a shrug. "The good thing about small batches is you can start over in an instant. You don't have all the money and time invested."

The right formula

Unlike cooking that can be tailored to suit available ingredients and pans, baking is chemistry and requires a formula for cakes, cookies and breads to hold their structure. "One of the issues of baking a cake is what to do with the leavening because it doesn't break down proportionally," she says.

Nor can you simply double a recipe if you decide you want more.

In recognition of those quirks, Maugans Nakos tested each recipe seven or eight times before settling on just the right ratio of flour to leavening. It's important to measure ingredients accurately because just 1 tablespoon of extra flour will adversely affect the results.

Maugans Nakos emphasizes the importance of such basics as lightly spooning ingredients into a dry measure and leveling with a knife; never scoop from the canister.

Even using a larger egg than the recipe calls for can produce poor results. "In a perfect world, I could have used a small egg, but they don't market them anymore," Maugans Nakos says. So for some recipes she suggests using part of a medium egg, or about 3 tablespoons.

To measure out part of a large egg, she suggests mixing the egg in a small bowl and using a fork to blend (do not make foamy). Measure the desired amount into the bowl and store the remaining amount in a covered container in the refrigerator.

In many recipes the salt required is Lilliputian. Copy editors changed her 1/16th teaspoon measure to the less precise "pinch" of salt fearing home cooks didn't have a measuring device so small.

Then there's the cup of batter for the Lemon Roulade. When working with such small amounts, even the circumference of the mixing bowl must be taken into consideration.

"With small amounts of ingredients, you must use the right size bowl or it will slide around and you'll end up chasing the filling," Maugans Nakos says.

She prefers a 1 1/2-quart bowl that is taller than it is wide. And a hand-held mixer is also better for the small jobs than a traditional stand mixer.

Although baking the recipes for yeast breads in the book won't take less time, the small amount of ingredients means less mess. Many of the breads are easier to put together because you can knead them in a bowl.

Another bonus to small-batch baking is the additional amount of crust or icing per square inch.