Ratio app for iPhone and iPad
Free yourself from recipes! The best-selling cookbook, Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking, by me, Michael Ruhlman, is now an iPhone app that will help you calculate amounts of ingredients in all the fundamental culinary preparations. When you know a ratio, you don’t know a recipe, you know 1,000. And this application does all the calculating for you.
“Cooking, like so many other creative endeavors is defined by relationships. For instance, knowing exactly how much flour to put into a loaf of bread isn’t nearly as useful as understanding the relationship between the flour and the water, or fat, or salt. That relationship is defined by a ‘ratio’ and having a ratio in hand is like having a secret decoder ring that frees you from the tyranny of recipes. ….Michael Ruhlman, in handing us mortals a power better suited to the gods, has changed the balance of kitchen power forever.” —Good Eats host Alton Brown
What You Get:
--THE 32 CRITICAL RATIOS that form the backbone of the culinary arts, with instructions: doughs, batters, meat preparations, custards, sauces (pasta dough and pizza dough, sponge cake and pancakes, fritters and crepes, stocks and sauces, crème caramel and chocolate sauce.
--A CALCULATOR that figures out how much of each ingredient you need, no matter how many or how few people you want to serve.
--An OUNCES-TO-GRAMS CONVERTER (ratios work no matter what unit you choose to use!).
--DELICIOUS VARIATIONS FOR RECIPES on all the ratios, ideas for the creation of new dishes according to your tastes.
--An easy way to STORE YOUR OWN RECIPES and notes that you’ve created from the basic ratios.
--Quick fun ways to SHARE what your cooking with your fellow cooks, on Facebook and on Twitter.
--Ratios is also a great way to understand and TWEAK YOUR OWN RECIPES, to help you make your pancakes even fluffier, your pizza dough crisper, your crème brulee richer.
Pros and cons of Ratio app for iPhone and iPad
Ratio app good for
Ratio by Michael Ruhlman is one of the best cookbooks of all time, and now you can own the app. With a stylish and elegant interface, it breaks the Ratio of mixtures in cooking down to its simplest form. Doughs, batters, custards, fat-based sauces, stocks & thickeners, meat-related Ratios, and desert sauce Ratios are all presented in an easy to use format for the beginning or expert cook alike. Using the basic Ratios that are in cooking you can adapt them and make endless variations. Handy calculators, recipe saving, and the ability to email recipes, post to Facebook or tweet via twitter are all provided within the Ratio app. Easy to use, and totally recommended!
The app crashes while trying to adjust quantities when using app on iOS 4 with a 3GS. Hope it gets fixed soon! Great tool for anyone who spends time in a kitchen.
Its a great app. However it could use some improvement. The calc. for mayo just doesnt work. No one needs to know how many cups of egg yolks to use, and you cant change the unit. that being my only complaint, i am happy with it.
Im a Red Seal Chef and definitely attest that this is a perfect app for professional cooks and chefs. The book is a must have as well!!
This is a very good and functional app. The app is not a waste of time. The instant calculations are fantastic and having the Ratios from the book at my finger tips is awesome! I agree with a couple of the other suggestions, but Id really like to see on the notes is the ability to hit a return key and have the keyboard turn horizontal.
I got this app after reading the book and I LOVE it. Yes, you could just write the Ratios down out of the book, but the app also has a calculator and some details and tips for the different Ratios. If they can fix it so that it will stop crashing on my iPhone 4 itd be great!
Some bad moments
I used it for making muffins but the fat to flour Ratio is way too high. I cut it by 1/3 and it was still far too much butter. I am in love with the idea of this app more than the reality.
Five dollars? You could fit the information this app contains on a double sided, letter sized sheet of paper with 12 point type. I like the concept and it has its uses. But for $5 Id like to see how these Ratios adapt to different dietary requirements, or something a little more encyclopedic in its scope. For one thing, its extremely French classical in its viewpoint. Wish Id read the reviews prior to purchasing.
4.99 for this? Love Ruhlman...hate thus app. Save your money.
This is a good idea and would be very useful with a few additions. I would like to have a central place to keep notes, the ability to post my own Ratios, and most of all the calculator should let you back calculate the amount of ingredients from entering a desired final product volume. I read elsewhere that a revision is ready, but that was weeks ago and here we are with all of these weaknesses uncorrected. Disappointing
Why is this not working on my Touch? It loads fine, but any time I try to change the measure (ounces to grams, or something similar) the app quits and takes me back home. Ive sent a note to the support email but no response so far today. Im bummed and I sincerely hope that there is a fix. I will happily post another review if and when I get this running properly.
Since the update for iOS 4 this app has been broken. Changing more than one item (e.g. quantity and units) results in a crash. This makes it basically useless.