Recipe Time and Servings: The Real Total Time, When to Start, and Servings into Meals

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Opens on Chapter 1’s example: Tamsin’s lasagna: prep 25, cook 45, rest 10, a 4-hour soak, dinner at 7:00, serves 6 in a 9 × 13 pan, for two people.

Times

Prep (minutes)

Cook (minutes)

Rest (minutes)

Soak or rise (hours)

Dinner at

Servings

Recipe serves

People eating each meal

Pan width (in)

Pan length (in)

A batch into pieces

Recipe makes (pieces)

Shared among

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Enter your numbers, then press Work it out.

How it works

Active time is the prep plus the cooking. Total time adds the rest. The soak, rise or marinade often isn’t in the total line at all, so add it yourself. Counting back from dinner, subtract the total to find when to start, and the soak to find when it must go in the water. Servings divided by the people eating gives the number of meals; the pan’s area divided by the servings gives the size of each piece.

From the book, Chapter 1. Tamsin’s lasagna is 70 minutes of work and 80 in all (320 with the soak), so for dinner at 7:00 she starts at 5:40 and soaks the cashews by 1:40. Six servings for two is 3 dinners, each piece 19.5 sq in of the 9 × 13 pan; 24 cookies for 8 is 3 each, and for 5 it’s 4 each with 4 left. Every chapter and its calculator →

Amounts can be typed as 3, 0.75, 3/4, 1 1/2 or 1½. They’re worked as exact fractions and written as a cook measures them: cups in quarters or thirds, then tablespoons, then teaspoons to the nearest eighth. Everything stays in your browser: no sign-up, nothing stored or sent.