3.2 Self-check on ratios
Exercise 9 Chocolate chip cookies
A recipe for chocolate chip cookies requires 48 tablespoons of flour, 16 tablespoons of sugar, and 32 tablespoons of chocolate chips.
(a) What is the ratio of flour to sugar to chocolate chips?
Answer
48:16:32, which simplifies to 3:1:2 (through division by 16).
(b) If you only have 36 tablespoons of flour, how many tablespoons of sugar and chocolate chips do you need to maintain the recipe’s taste and consistency?
Answer
Three parts of flour is equivalent to 36 tablespoons. So, one part is equivalent to 12 tablespoons. Thus, you will need 12 tablespoons of sugar and 24 tablespoons of chocolate chips.
(c) Suppose you have 40 tablespoons of chocolate chips, and plenty of everything else. Determine the amount of flour and sugar you will need, if you want the maximum number of cookies you can make with your 40 tablespoons of chocolate chips.
Answer
In this case, two parts of chocolate chips will be equivalent to 40 tablespoons. So, one part is equivalent to 20 tablespoons. Thus, you will need 
tablespoons of flour and 
tablespoons of sugar.