Final answer:
Without additional information on the original recipe, we cannot determine the exact amount of flour needed for 12 servings precisely. However, the process involves scaling the recipe up proportionally based on the original amount of flour used for the given number of servings.
Step-by-step explanation:
The question asks how many cups of flour are needed to serve 12 people. To determine this, we need to have information about the original recipe, such as how many people a single portion of the recipe serves and how many cups of flour are used for that portion. Once we have the original recipe, we can scale the amount of flour up or down to match the necessary serving amount.
To illustrate this, let's say we have a recipe that serves 4 people and requires 1 cup of flour. If this recipe is to be adjusted to serve 12 people, we need to calculate the factor by which to increase our ingredients. The factor would be the number of servings we need to create (12) divided by the number of servings the original recipe provides (4), which is 3. Thus, we will multiply the original amount of flour (1 cup) by 3 to get the total number of cups needed for 12 people, resulting in 3 cups of flour.
This method of scaling recipes is essential when cooking for a larger or smaller group than the recipe was originally designed for. This approach is often referred to as determining the proportional amounts of ingredients.