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6th grade (Illustrative Mathematics)
Course: 6th grade (Illustrative Mathematics) > Unit 2
Lesson 3: Lesson 3: RecipesEquivalent ratios: recipe
Adjusting a cake recipe for different guest numbers involves understanding ratios. Halving ingredients for a smaller cake maintains the same ratio, like eggs to flour (4:3). Ratios ensure consistent taste and quality, regardless of cake size.
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- What if you have a number of guests like 20 guests coming over for your dinner party?(59 votes)
- You would, find 32 divided by 20 (which equals 1.6) and you would divide all the ingredients by 1.6(65 votes)
- Thank you so much Sal! I learnt alot about ratios, I just have 1 question, can you teach us how to make them equal like if there were, lik, 19 people coming over?(17 votes)
- If you have 32 as the starting point, 1/2 and 1/4 are very natural ratios, but if you have 19 people, this a very awkward ratio of 19/32, so multiplying 19/32*8 = 4.75 makes it difficult to make a super cake with 3/4 of an egg. Or 10/32*6 = 3.5635 cups of flour. So if you have 19 guests, most people would tend to make the super cake that serves 32 and just expect to have leftovers.
Or they may say well what if I want to use 6 eggs which is 6/8 or 3/4 of each of the ingredients (3/4*32 = 24 people). 6*3/4 = 4 1/2 cups of flour and sugar or 2*3/4 = 6/4 or 1 1/2 cups of butter, etc.(23 votes)
- when will we use ratios in real life, other than baking?(13 votes)
- like comparing prices per ounce while grocery shopping, calculating the proper amounts for ingredients in recipes and determining how long car trip might take.(8 votes)
- Madness. the answer is ALWAYS 32 SERVINGS OF CAKE!(19 votes)
- I MADE THE SUPER CAKE! I quartered it and added extra water, cut down the sugar, switched baking soda for baking powder (And cut that down as well), and added salt and vanilla. It was dense but moist, and sweet. Total recipe of 2 eggs, 1.5 cups of flour, 1 cup of sugar, 1 stick of butter, 1 teaspoon of baking powder, one teaspoon of salt, 1.5 cups of water, and a splash of vanilla in the oven at 350 for 25 minutes.(16 votes)
- Does ratios work by what comes first like: 7 beach balls and 4 sand buckets, so would that mean the ratio is 7:4?(9 votes)
- yeah. it does depend on what comes first. if i was asked what the ratio of beach balls to sand buckets was, i could write "7:4" or "7 to 4"(4 votes)
- my teacher told me that order does not matter? How come?(4 votes)
- The order really does matter because if you have a problem like "For every 1 doughnut there is 3 cakes" your ratio can be 1:3, 2:6, 3:9. But if you notice the ratios I made was how many doughnuts there are first THEN how many cakes there are. Your teacher was probably confused or you were confused(5 votes)
- If you only have 16 people coming over then you should do half of the ingredients for the super cake!(9 votes)
- i have 9 apple and 109 people.what is answer(6 votes)
- I look at it through a different perspective I just did half of everything instead of do it like this!! Does that make it easier??:'(7 votes)
- You did the same as what Sal did in the video. Sal took half of each item, or divided them by 2. Both operations are the same thing.(2 votes)
Video transcript
- [Instructor] Right over
here, we have the recipe for super cake, which you
want to make for your guests that are coming over for dinner tonight. But this recipe right over here, this is for 32 people. This would serve 32 folks. But, you only have 16 guests coming over. So, if you only have
16 guests coming over, what should be your ingredients here? How much of each of these
ingredients should you have? I encourage you to pause the
video and think about it. Right now, we're gonna think about, well, we're gonna have a slightly
smaller super cake. Smaller super, super cake. You might have reasoned that, "Look, if we're going to
have half as many guests, "then each of the ingredients, "we should just have half as much." And you would be right. Instead of eight eggs, for
our smaller super cake, you could have four eggs. Instead of six cups of flour,
in our smaller super cake, you could have three cups of flour. Instead of six cups of sugar, you could have three cups of sugar. I'm just taking half of
each of these numbers. Instead of two cups of butter, you could have one cup of butter. Instead of six teaspoons of baking soda, you could have three
teaspoons of baking soda. And, last but not least,
instead of two cups of water, you could have one cup of water. Now, this will work and this is actually how you should adjust recipes. But there's something
interesting about what's similar about these two recipes. The recipe for the main super
cake that feeds 32 people and the recipe for the smaller super cake. And that's the notion of ratios. The ratios between ingredients or the ratio of how much of an ingredient you need for given guests. For example, you can see here
that for every eight eggs, you have six cups of flour. So, let me write this down. So, for every eight eggs we have six cups of flour. We have six cups of flour. Which can be expressed as a ratio of, the ratio of eggs to flour is 8:6. Which is, once again, interpreted
as for every eight eggs, I have six cups of flour. If I said for every six cups
of flour, I have eight eggs, I would've written 6:8. So, the order here matters. But here I'm saying the ratio of eggs to flour, of eggs
to cups of flour is 8:6. For every eight eggs, I
have six cups of flour. Well, what about for the smaller cake? Well, here, for every four eggs, for every four eggs, we have three cups of flour. We have three cups of flour. So, what would this ratio be? Well, for every four eggs, we have three cups of flour. So, the ratio of eggs to flour is 4:3. Now, turns out that these
are the exact same ratio. If you have eight eggs for
every six cups of flour, or for every eight eggs
you have six cups of flour, that's the same thing
as for every four eggs, you have three cups of flour. What you're just doing is
taking each of these numbers and you are dividing it by two. So, you could say the
ratio in either case, the ratio of eggs to flour, let me write this down. The ratio of eggs, eggs, to two cups of flour. Let me write two cups of flour. Cups of flour. In either case is, is four eggs for every three cups of flour. This is going to be
true for either recipe. You have the same ratio. If you have eight eggs here, so, for every four eggs, you
have three cups of flour. Well, that means your going
to have six cups of flour. This is why ratios are helpful. This recipe has a
different number of eggs, a different number of cups of flour, a different number of cups of sugar. But the ratios between the
ingredients are the same. So, you will be able to have
a cake that tastes the same, that essentially is the same cake but just is a different size.