Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

It would be amazing if there was something that would convert recipes to the format used on Cooking For Engineers. It’s so intuitive and easy to read. I never want to look at steps to make a recipe again.

Scroll to the bottom to see what I’m talking about: http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/108/Banana-Nut-Bre...



You should link to the "recipe card" mode to show it better: http://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/108/Banana-Nut-Bre...


It looks like my window to edit my comment is over, but I would have linked to the recipe view if I had know about it. Thanks!


This is amazing!

I have ADHD so I often find my self taking a non-linear route to following a recipe: Step 1, Step 3, Step 4, oops! Step 2, now where was I? Is that salt or baking powder in the bowl?


That is very good dataviz


Modernist Cuisine has recipes with a similar format. They also have an ingredient list with baker's percentage using the largest ingredient by weight as the baseline.

Example (second image) https://modernistcuisine.com/recipes/pressure-cooked-vegetab...


I use CookBook which scans websites, and OCRs cookbooks with good success! I have all my regular recipes on there now

https://thecookbookapp.com/


For those similarly unable to find the pricing, it's hidden under a link on the Sign Up page: https://help.thecookbookapp.com/hc/en-gb/articles/3600025945...

Currently, some different money for recipes as a service, and the weird price of $41 for a "lifetime" subscription

It will interest this audience that they have a public roadmap, too: https://roadmap.thecookbookapp.com/cookbook


Looks cool but did a very poor job of importing the first recipe I tried.


I use Paprika which doesn't ever seem to have problems for me. They offer a significant sale every year for Thanksgiving.


I'm a paprika user as well. Recently found "Mela" on the App Store. Not as many features(yet) but the UI is so much better than Paprika.


I'd like an alternative to Paprika that is updated more often, but the lack of Android app makes Mela an immediate non starter


I think you'd like Pepper (www.peppertheapp.com/)


[dead]


The app actually looks decent, so it's a shame you spammed this without disclosing you founded the company or providing any additional context. Behavior like this makes me suspicious of things like your app store reviews.

It's fine to share something you founded, just be upfront about it and don't spam. It would have been easy to just post "We're working on something similar over at Pepper! <link> Our approach is .... Would love to hear what people think."


My man you have spammed your app at least three other times in this thread. At least contribute to the discussion before linking your page.


Thanks for sharing. I made digital recipe viewers to replace the old binders in our restaurants’ kitchens. They’re old iPad minis on Mosyle’s free MDM plan. I made an HTML/CSS website hosted on Netlify/GitHub, created a home screen shortcut on the iPad using a web clip, and hide all other iOS apps so that they can only launch the recipe viewer.

Everyone thinks I made an “app” because it launches in full screen thanks to the MDM. One of our kitchens doesn’t have Wi-Fi, but once the recipe viewer is launched, it doesn’t need connection anymore since it’s a single HTML page and the refresh button is hidden.

The recipes on my “app” use HTML tables fairly similar to the tables on the link you shared. I didn’t know HTML tables could be formatted like they are on cookingforengineers.


The job isn't over until we have gantt charts!


Specifically Gantt charts created from Org-mode inside Emacs :)


Damn, that is awesome. We need an AI to convert text instructions into this format.


I created this app to scrape a website's HTML for recipe and ingredients and create a grocery list. It works for recipes in many formats.

https://mo-nomz.herokuapp.com


It actually seems to mix visual metaphors though, since "Butter and flour a loaf pan" and "Preheat oven" are temporally top-to-bottom, until it gets to the ingredients, when it switches to (depending on how one interprets it) temporally left-to-right or a dependency tree, but without any visual indication that change has happened

I would actually expect the whole process could be laid out in graphviz since all of those are dependencies of the ultimate outcome (heh, "enjoy"). I originally thought it may be a DAG, but I can recall a few recipes that explicitly have a looping step in them


Honestly it’s cute and clever, but not especially useful. I find it doesn’t really add anything and is clever fir it’s own sake.

I know tastes differ, but personally I think it’s terrible.


This is nice.

I have always been interested in seeing a database which had consistent units and ingredients as well, such that pulling the full database and doing visualizations could be easily done.

This would also make the adjustment to the batch size for each recipe on each webpage much simpler.

"Want 1 Liter of dough for 2 banana bread loafs? Just change the amount output field and watch the values change". Type of thing.

Obviously I know heat transfer effects need to be taken into account and such for some things, but it would be at least a start . Then the real mass/heat transfer and such engineering fun can begin.


That is amazing. How is this not famous yet? Its even social media friendly!


If you like this kind of representation for recipe preparation steps, you might also enjoy "Cookbook for Nerds":

https://www.cookbookfornerds.com/


(nb: may be inaccessible at the moment via https; worth trying http if so)


Still a lot of text to get up and go, even if the context can be helpful.

Personally I am a fan of the Food Network recipes online, especially Alton Brown’s. Straight to the point with no fluff, and maybe a Good Eats segment if you’re lucky.


There's a Recipe Card button in the top right; doesn't get more compact than that. Though I think I'd struggle cooking an unfamiliar recipe using only the card, like you said, the context is helpful (and so are some photos, I might add).


Maybe I'm an outlier, but holy hell I cannot read that format at all.


Similar app which converts recipes to a grocery list!

https://mo-nomz.herokuapp.com


This is a great way to represent recipes! It looks like it would also allow more info to be fit on a notecard compared to just text


That’s pretty cool recipe formatting, but man that site has the least appetizing food photography I’ve seen in a long time.


It's for engineers. Function > Form


Great thing about those recipes its not only the layout, it has the volumes in grams.


How on Earth would you measure volume in grams?


Easy! water 150ml = water 150g /pedantry

I think the op means it’s nice that the ingredients are given by weight because it is more accurate than volume.


The sample recipe states 90ml of butter, last time I checked it was solid. I have no idea how you would work that out. Wiki says it’s 911g/l so I guess you use about 80g which is easy enough to measure, but why not list the weight (for cooking on Earth weight and mass are interchangeable)

I’m not sure why it’s talking about “cups”, I thought americans used “gallons” or “fluid ounces” for volume? It also has one ingredient that has accuracy to 3sf in its weight (167 grams) which seems rather excessive for cooking.

In theory you can use volume to measure things like flour, although it is trickier than using weight as you have to smooth it over.


Oh! I love this recipe card style - Thanks for that!


woah that is cool




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: