Recipes

_posts/2020-07-09-recipes-for-engineers.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: "Recipes for Engineers"
+description: ""
+category:
+tags: [food]
+---
+
+It's a little weird applying an engineering mindset to everything, but after navigating a bunch of
+new recipes as part of cooking and baking during quarantine, this what I think could be beneficial.
+
+1. Don't intersperse recipe directions with anecdotes. When my hands are covered in whatever I'm
+   working on, it's difficult to scroll up and down on a laptop or other device.
+
+2. Provide weight/mass measurements for everything. Everyone has a different way of measuring flour,
+   and having to clean all the measuring utensils is a pain. Much easier to dump all the dry
+   ingredients into the same bowl by weight (oz, g) and not have individual measurements. Bakers'
+   percentages are nice, but please also include a set of reference numbers so I don't have to do
+   all the math on the fly (or figure out how it translates to serving sizes)
+
+3. Make the purpose of each step explicit. When baking, I typically want to wait for the dough to
+   double in size, it just happens to take somewhere around two hours. Also, why does pie dough need
+   ice water? It's far too little volume to no immediately change temp. A good way to frame the
+   discussion is: what would happen if I just left this step out?
+
+4. When combining ingredients, re-state how much is being added. I don't have containers to
+   pre-measure everything and dump in, I'd rather know exactly how much is needed at the moment it
+   is needed.
+
+5. Add context about tolerance where possible. Do I need _exactly_ 352 grams of something? For
+   baking, being that precise might well be important. Significant figures matter (and maybe don't
+   use more than 2? Or at least explain why more than 2 sigfigs are needed if used)
+
+6. The shopping list is for total quantities of an ingredient. The only reason to split quantities
+   here is for optional steps. But if you need 4g of something at one point, and 4g at another, tell
+   me 8g in the ingredients list.
+
+Other potential intros:
+
+- It's probably a pathology of software people that they think they can improve everything, so here
+  I am writing about recipes
+- Despite the old adage warning about
+  [engineers and food](https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/fklb1/a_wife_asks_her_husband_a_software_engineer/),
+  going to humbly submit some ideas for making more helpful recipes.