Cupcakes and Calculations

I love baking cupcakes.

Every person I know gets cupcakes on their birthday; a carefully crafted work of art and yumminess. The best part is not even the cupcake, but the frosting. I love taking the time to carefully decorate the tops of cupcakes, adding a sprinkle of color, or trying a new technique.

Today, I came across a new recipe for Perfect Cupcake Frosting. I’m dying to try it. However, I do not want to make a whole batch of cupcakes, just half a batch. This happens often. Sometimes, I want to make 4 cupcakes or get a little crazy and bake 24, and on some days, I just want 2, for myself.

So today, I’m making 12 cupcakes. I’ll need to half each ingredient in the frosting recipe in order to create half the amount of frosting.

2 packages of cream becomes 1 package of cream cheese because 2 x 1/2 = 2/2 or 1.

I can also perform conversions by thinking in terms of proportions. 4 cups of powdered sugar is to 24 cupcakes. How many cups of powdered sugar is to 12 cupcakes?

4/24=x/12

Using cross multiplication, 48=24x

Therefore, x=2

I’ll be needing 2 cups of powdered sugar.

Converting measurements doesn’t always give me nice, whole numbers. Sometimes, a little estimation is necessary, and that’s okay. The frosting (and cupcakes) will taste good.

Here are some proportion resources for students.

This website offers many ratio and proportion worksheets and allows students to understand real-life applications of proportions.

A flipchart that allows students to practice their proportion skills in real world settings.

Lesson plan: Fractions and Recipes. This lesson plan gives students opportunities to make conversions in order to adjust recipes based on the number of people eating.

Food and Fractions

As I sat, enjoying a pepperoni and onion pizza with two friends, we came to a dilemma: there were three hungry individuals and only two pieces of pizza left. This happens often, if you find yourself sharing food with other people. Luckily, we don’t have to think too hard when an 8-piece pizza cannot be evenly distributed between three people. We find a way to split up the remaining two pieces.

Maybe unknowingly, when we share food, we are displaying an understanding of fractions. When I split a cookie with my best friend, it is assumed that we break the cookie in half. Why? Because splitting one whole into two even parts leaves me with 1/2 of the cookie.

When teaching fractions to students, food is a good place to start. I mean, who doesn’t like food?

There are endless word problems involving food. Here are a few:

Daniel and his friends roasted 2/5 of a bag of marshmallows. Daniel’s sister and her friends roasted another 1/5 of the bag of marshmallows. In all, how much of the bag of marshmallows was roasted?

Harold’s family ordered an extra super deluxe supreme pizza. They ate 1/4 of the pizza in the parking lot and another 2/4 in the car on the way home. In all, how much pizza was eaten before they got home?

Abby used 1/5 of a mango in her fruit smoothie. Mac used 1/4 of a mango in his. Who used more mango?

Jesse put toppings on his salad. One fourth (1/4) of his toppings were cherry tomatoes and two eighths (2/8) of his toppings were olives. Did Jesse use more olives or more cherry tomatoes on his salad?

In addition to word problems, there are many hands on activities that can engage students in learning fractions.

Recipes are a great way for students to interact with fractions in a practical way. Students can use these recipes to encourage practicing fractions at home. And cooking is fun!

Pizza Fraction Fun is an activity that allows students to work together in groups to solve equivalent fraction problems with pizza.

You can always come up with your own activities involving your favorite food!