Question

Professional chefs usually measure ingredients by weight rather than by volume. A recipe calls for 5 ounces of flour for every 6 ounces of sugar. If you are a chef and you use 30 ounces of sugar, how many ounces of flour should you use?

Answer 1

To find the amount of flour needed for 30 ounces of sugar based on the recipe's ratio, set up a proportion (5 ounces flour / 6 ounces sugar = x ounces flour / 30 ounces sugar), which results in 25 ounces of flour.

Step-by-step explanation:

You have indicated that professional chefs measure ingredients by weight and provided a ratio of flour to sugar in a recipe. The question involves using proportional reasoning to determine the amount of flour needed if 30 ounces of sugar are used. Given the recipe's ratio of 5 ounces of flour for every 6 ounces of sugar, we can set up a proportion to solve for the unknown quantity of flour.

To solve for the flour's weight, we have:

Thus, if you're using 30 ounces of sugar, you would need 25 ounces of flour. This is similar to scaling up ingredients in a pound cake recipe, which requires equal weights of the main ingredients.

When measuring ingredients in cooking or in chemistry, precision is important. Just as in the stoichiometry of chemical reactions, such as combining hydrogen and oxygen to form water, the ratio of the substances involved must be accurate to achieve the desired result.