Recipes Have you ever made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich How did you do it How would you explain to someone else how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich You would probably say something like 1 Get two slices of bread peanut butter and jelly 2 Spread some peanut butter on one slice of bread 3 Put the two pieces of bread together with the spreads and some jelly on the other slice of bread on the inside to make a sandwich 6
Recipes are very much like mathematical formulas That’s a recipe a set of instructions telling someone how to make something The bread peanut butter and jelly are all ingredients in the recipe The instructions or recipe for making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich are very simple Recipes can be simple or complex but they always follow the same pattern They give a set of ingredients and tell you what to do with them to create the finished product Fast Fact STEM What makes the peanut butter and jelly sandwich a simple recipe For one thing there are only three ingredients Also if you take a look at step 2 it says spread some peanut butter on one slice of bread and some jelly on the other slice of bread The amounts of peanut butter and jelly are not exact That is partly why it is such a simple recipe It’s up to you to decide how much you want to put on your sandwich 7
Foods like brownies lasagna or soup are made with more complicated recipes They are complicated because they use many different ingredients and require very specific amounts of each Determining an exact amount of something is called measuring Let’s take a look at the ingredients in a complex recipe Here are the ingredients in a recipe for chocolate brownies 1 2 cup butter 1 cup white sugar 2 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder 1 2 cup all-purpose flour 1 4 teaspoon salt 1 4 teaspoon baking powder 8
You can probably see the difference between this recipe and the recipe for the peanut butter and jelly sandwich This recipe doesn’t just say some eggs it calls for two eggs You’re dealing with exact amounts 9
