CookingWith
Math
Natasha Glydon
Math is in every kitchen, on every recipe card, and at each holiday gathering. The
mathematics of cooking often goes unnoticed, but in reality, there is a large quantity of
math skills involved in cooking and baking.
Conversions
Most ranges have dials that display the cooking temperature of the oven. In North
America, most of these temperatures are written in Fahrenheit and usually are in
increments of 25. In Canada, recipe and oven temperatures are often presented in
degrees Celsius. It is important then to understand how to convert a Fahrenheit
temperature to an appropriate Celsius temperature. For example, lets say your oven
displays Fahrenheit temperatures with 50 increments. Your recipe tells you to bake your
dish at 220C. What temperature do you turn your oven to? Well, you will need to
convert 220C to a Fahrenheit measurement.
We use this formula to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit:
To make sure you do not over bake the cookies, you will need to set the oven to 428F.
But remember, your oven only displays the temperature in 50 increments, so you must
estimate on the dial where 428F is, somewhere between 400F and 450F. The
relationship between celsius and fahrenheit is a linear function:
We also use conversions when we bake or cook to convert sizes and amounts. Many
recipes are written in imperial units (teaspoon, tablespoons, and cups). Some newer
recipes and measuring devices in Canada are labeled in metric units, such as milliliters
(mL). If the recipe calls for cup of butter and your measuring equipment is labeled in
mL, how will you know which measurement to use? We can apply this conversion
formula: 1 cup = 237mL. This means that cup = 118.5mL. Again, this exact
measurement is probably not on the measuring cup. It is probably closest to 125mL, so
we will again have to estimate.
Making Enough
Most recipes give guidelines as to how much a single batch will produce. But what if
you want more? It seems too time consuming to mix up another batch. What if the
recipe makes only one dozen cupcakes and you need three dozen? Clearly, three dozen is
three times more than 1 dozen, so we can multiply all the ingredients by three to make a
larger batch. It is also important to understand how to multiply fractions. If the cupcake
recipe calls for cup of milk and we want to triple it, we need to know that:
So, we will need 2 and 1/4 cups of milk to make three dozen cupcakes.
This knowledge of fractions is also helpful when we need to make our batch smaller. For
example, recipe guidelines approximate that each batch will yield 6 dozen cookies. But,
my family is small and I only want 2 dozen cookies. First, we need to see the
relationship between 2 and 6. We can see that 2 dozen is one third (1/3) of 6 dozen
because 2 x 3 = 6. That means that in order to make only 2 dozen cookies, we will need
to use one third of each ingredient. So, if the recipe asks for 2 teaspoons of baking
powder, we will only need 2/3 of a teaspoon, since
If we do not have a measuring spoon that is equal to 2/3 teaspoon, we may need to use
1/3 twice, or estimate using .
When recipes indicate how much a particular batch will make, they give a general
amount of food. If we are cooking for a group, we need to estimate how much each
person will eat and make appropriate amounts of the particular item. For example, if a
package of spaghetti makes 1L of cooked spaghetti, will we have enough to feed six
people with one package? If not, how much of a second package will we have to use?
First, we need to estimate how much each person will eat. We can guess that each person
will eat 1 cup of spaghetti, which is 237mL. For convenience sake, we can round this to
250mL. That means that six people will eat 1500mL of spaghetti. If 1L=1000mL, we
know that we will need to make one whole package, plus half of the second package to
ensure that everyone has enough to eat.
Being Creative
Sometimes, we may not have all the ingredients to make a recipe, but we may have
something we can fittingly substitute. How does this affect the measurement amounts in
the recipe? For example, lets imagine we are making Rice Krispie cake. The recipe
calls for 32 large marshmallows, but we only have miniature marshmallows. We can still
use the small marshmallows, but we will need to estimate how many mini marshmallows
would make one large marshmallow, and multiply that number by 32.
What if you want to spice up your chocolate chip cookies by adding almonds and
coconut? Your recipe calls for 2 cups of chocolate chips, but you want to add 1/3 cup of
almonds and 1/6 cup of coconut. How much chocolate chips do you still have to add?
Well, we simply need to subtract, using fractions.
We still need to add 1 and cups of chocolate chips. It is important to remember that
when adding and subtracting fractions, we need to use a common denominator.
Weight
Weight often affects cooking time. Consider the following hypothetical situation: we are
cooking an 8 pound turkey for Christmas dinner. If the turkey needs to thaw in the
refrigerator for 24 hours, per 5 pounds, we need to take the turkey out of the freezer in
advance. We can use a proportional relation to help us decide how early to thaw the
turkey.
The above proportion reads as follows: 5 pounds is to 24 hours as 8 pounds is to x hours.
By cross-multiplying and dividing, we can find an answer of 38.4 hours, which is the
solution for x.
If we are instructed to cook the turkey for 20 minutes per pound, how long do we need to
cook the turkey? Well, 20 minutes per pound for 8 pounds is 20 x 8 = 160 minutes. And,
160 minutes is two hours and 40 minutes. If we only knew the weight of our turkey in
kilograms, we would need another conversion formula (kilograms to pounds) to find the
weight of the turkey in pounds first, and then apply the recommendations.
Cost
We also use math when cooking and baking to estimate the cost of a certain dish. We can
understand that cheesecake is more expensive to make than a batch of cookies,
particularly when people buy ingredients such as flour, sugar, and butter in bulk and
cream cheese is more expensive. When comparing recipes, it may be beneficial to
estimate the cost of each recipe.
Mathematical skills are used quite frequently when baking and cooking. It can be very
helpful to understand how math affects the quality of culinary in order to make the most
delicious meals and treats.
Try this cooking Web Quest that involves math.
