New design, new features for the Ratio app, a recipe calculator, for iOS7.
The new version of our Ratio app is now available, with a thrilling new feature. You can create your own custom ratios. For instance, while the 5-to-3 flour-to-water ratio, or 60% water, is the standard baker's percentage for bread, many prefer a wetter dough, as high as 86% for the no-knead doughs. Now you can create and save your own ratios. You can devise your own specific recipes and save them to your recipe library. And of course the app still functions as an all-purpose recipe calculator for 32 fundamental preparations. Simply type in the amount of one ingredient and the app automatically tabulates the amounts of all the ingredients.
Scale recipes up or down as needed. Want pancakes but have only one egg? Type that in to tabulate the correct amount of flour and milk. Want to triple the amount of dough for pizzas? It's a tap of a button. Have an irregular amount of ground meat and want to tabulate the right amount of salt? Type in the weight of the meat and the amount of salt for perfectly seasoned sausage appears. Want to reduce the amount of your favorite turkey brine for a small chicken? Type in the amount of water you want to use, and Ratio calculates the brine strength. I've added a couple new ratios (for an all-yolk pasta, for instance). And Donna's lovely black and white photographs at last get a proper display.
Cooking is not about following recipes (though recipes are important). Cooking is really about proportions of one ingredient relative to others and how those proportions work. A ratio is a starting point, the basis for infinite variations and preparations, whether for cakes, doughs, sauces, brines, stocks, thickeners, or custards. I wrote a book devoted to the idea, called Ratio. When Will Turnage, VP of Technology and Invention at R/GA, emailed me to ask if we might collaborate on an app based on the book, I was thrilled—a perfect union of cooking and our new technology. The new design is by David and Joleen Hughes, of Level, based in Calistoga, California. That's the new logo they've created for this site, the R with the quill and the knife, which will launch soon. If you already own the app, simply update it. Let me know if you have any problems. If you don't own it, we're keeping the $4.99 price the same for at least the next few months while Will works on the final innovation to follow his make-your-own-ratio functionality.
Will's and my biggest hopes are that this app encourages more people to cook and will make cooking for everyone easier and more fun. Happy cooking, all!
All ratios come with basic preparation instructions.
The coolest part of the Ratio 2.0 app is the ability to create your own ratios and recipes.
Related links:
- Will and I also created the Bread Baking Basics app for the iPad, which calculates recipes for all kinds of bread.
- I introduced last year the iPad app Schmaltz: Love Song to a Forgotten Fat; it was published in hardcover by Little, Brown in August and, by agreement with the publisher, is now back in the iTunes store as an app. There's a video of how the app works in this post.
- Again, this all began with the book Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking.
© 2014 Michael Ruhlman. Photo © 2014 Donna Turner Ruhlman. All rights reserved.
So very excited for this app! Love Ratio! I suggest Ratio to all of my Culinary 1 students. I appreciate all you do - it has definitely made me a better chef!
thanks!
Are we Android users of Ratio going to get an update?
not likely. android market terrible. can't afford the time so few users.
Michael - based on published market research; Android platforms now exceed iOS and the trend continues. The degree of difference varies depending on which source you look read, but all agree that Android has the greater market share. Not including Android as a platform for Ratio not only limits your sales, but it also is a barrier for a significant number of your readers.
From the appleinsider website, "A new report from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech released Monday shows Apple ceding the top of the podium in most regions once again to handsets running Google's Android operating system. Apple's iOS took 18.5 percent of the market in Europe, 43.9 percent in the U.S., and and 19 percent in China to Android's 68.6 percent, 50.6 percent, and 78.6 percent, respectively."
I'm an iOS user, but think Ratio should be available to more people.
Apportable? StellaSDK? and there are others that work to port apps to Android without rebuilding the app. And everyone I know is switching to Android...
Kudos to the new app. But for FIVE BUCKS, I'd rather "do the math".
Amen to that.
Amen to the "We need some Android love" comment.
what I like is that if I weigh out 2758 grams of sausage meat, I know to add 46 grams of salt without having to remember the percentage and then do the math—perfeclty seasoned sausage every time. same with brine. perfect pasta given variable weight of eggs, etc. if it was just a matter of multiplying something by .05 I’d agree with you. Also what IS the pancake ratio? I can never remember. Where is that on your calculator?
Android market so much bigger than iOS. Fail.
Does this update the existing app? 'Cos i love the app and it is my go-to for those ratios not already in my head. I should re-phrase: Do I have to buy it again or does it just update itself?
Thanks
Jon
Never mind- I think it updated itself.
J
Mine updated. Yay! Thanks, MR.
Well this just sucks Michael and I'm not even sure what it means! So it is natively just about the money? not enough android users who downloaded the app?
I love the new knife / pen logo! Also would love an Android version!!
I'd like to see the Android version as well. Got rid of iphone a while back and very glad of it.
I love the app and the new design (and the book). One feature request: I'd like to be able to put in the total amount and have the app do the calculations for me. Say I know I want 1000 g of bread dough to make a nice sized boule, or 2 lbs of pasta dough. Sure, it doesn't take too many iterations to get the total close enough by tweaking one of the ingredients. But the total would save me a few taps.
I'd love to see an updated Android app too. (I finally entered the 21st century and got a tablet! But I can't justify the price differential for the iPad).
Who designed the logo with the quill and knife? Really awesome!
When I make my own ratio, the ingredient weights aren't being saved. Is this a known issue?
I agree - when creating my own ratios in the editor the first ingredient amount remains the same but the others do not stay and are magically replaced by incorrect amounts. Help!
Bought the Kindle version of Ratio just this month. Would love to see the Ratio app for iPad - don't have (and probably won't ever have) an iPhone. What are the chances?
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