Annoying that they did not even mention the original site: https://www.cookingforengineers.com/
Which does seem down right now, so archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20260729050049/https://www.cookingforengineers.com/
The site being down fits with the ‘for engineers’ theme
Just because we can’t code for shit and insist on doing everything ourselves…
Joking aside, it was down because it got Reddit hugged to death, since a post on the frontpage of /r/all mentioned it in the top comment.
Now it’s back online
Damn, even that site has a life story before a recipe
Very cool tho
If you put a recipe on your webpage Google will ignore that shit. Butter and eggs? So few words, many numbers. Boring.
So you have to add a narrative if you want search engines to pay any attention, or even count the page as content.
Google could just fix this, but no, we’ve all adjusted to it.
I had no idea it was about too few words. I always thought it was that they add all that fluff to maximize their advertising revenue, making you scroll and scroll through a story before you find the recipe. Seems like either way, it’s thanks to Google….
Maybe originally a couple decades ago, but every food blog template added a “jump to recipe” button pretty shortly after those started to be a thing.
This guy was the foundation of my cooking skills… 20 years ago. Damn.
I found the recipe but apparently the design in the OP wasn’t perfect, they have slightly updated it: https://www.cookingforengineers.com/recipe/327/Espresso-Brownies
Where’s the box for the story about how mother used to make this years ago and how the author made it for a such and such party and guests were asking for the recipe and …
I want to read the authors complete backstory and several holiday pictures and sales pitches on why I should buy their artisanal ingredients, scrolling until I nearly give up.
I feel like the recipe loses authenticity since there is no backstory about how their great uncle came up with the recipe after falling out of a guard tower during WWII.
“When I was eight my great uncle Pete introduced me to his Schweddy balls…”
justtherecipe.com is pretty great for cutting out that crap, although not as efficient as the system in OP pic
Here’s an open source library for generating these from markdown https://mossblaser.github.io/recipe_grid/tutorial.html
But where am I going to put the six paragraph AI generated anecdote about my grandmother?
In white text on white background at the bottom of the page where the rest of the SEO goes.
You know, I don’t hate this.
Let’s simplify websites significantly. Everything SEO/AI slop appears below the fold in white text.
The point of the AI slop / random pointless exposition is to maximize the number of ads a user has to scroll past to see the actual recipe. What incentive would a website have to put that at the bottom?
Or its because it was a family recipe passed down and making the recipe reminds you of all the special times you spent with family and want to share the origins of that family tradition, rather than just sharing your grandma’s secret recipe.
“And Nanny only used Hershey cocoa powder. Click my Amazon link to buy it from my shop!”
I believe this design breaks down once you prepare an ingredient that then gets split for use in two or more later steps.
But now I’m thinking which kind of diagram could be used as well. Some adaption of an UML activity diagram maybe?
List it twice?
No.
Or if any of the steps requires a more complicated instruction that can’t be expressed in a few words. It wouldn’t break the structure of the diagram, but it wouldn’t be as beautiful.
It is a fun idea though, maybe there is another format that works.
This diagram is classic “engineer developing a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist in a domain they don’t understand”
Create a separate card for that ingredient, and in the main card list “add X% of <other card>”
I like that idea, if only for the fact that it opens the door to recursive recipes.
A pie with itself?
Sounds like we’re close to inventing sourdough from first principles
I ran into this exact issue when I was making these diagrams for my own recipes: https://git.tilde.town/gamerdonkey/recipes_for_engineers#known-issues . My workaround was just to have instructions to set some aside and use it later.
I find this layout works best for in-the-moment reference while cooking, and the 2-dimensional nature of it is what really makes it useful. So I think of splitting an ingredient as like lifting some of it out into an imaginary third dimension before inserting it later at another step.
I’ve never seen a 3-dimensional recipe (ink in a cookbook notwithstanding), aren’t they all 2-dimensional?
Can’t an ingredient be there twice?
But you want to do the first phase together
Then two tables? Or rows in the middle to mark the action to split the ingredient in 2?
rows in the middle to mark the action to split sounds the best to me
I suppose you could show a split. Doesn’t cascade anymore but flow still works.
Works for some recipes, but not all.
Also, more detailed instructions are needed. Mix for how long, till what consistency? Baking times and temps usually also say something like “… or until just brown”, or “…until crispy with dark edges.” Because, unlike machines with switches that do exactly the same thing each time, cooking has many variables that simple instructions don’t account for.
Add an asterisk or number to reference a footnote for the steps that need more instruction. This would work really well for a lot of recipes.
It’s best for recipes where you know the techniques already. These are reminders and not detailed tutorials.
Like my bread “recipe”, which I don’t even bother writing down anymore, is just: 1% gluten flour, 29% spelt, 70% AP, 85% water, 15% starter. Sit 90 minutes. 3% salt, 20-25% other. Stretch and fold every half hour until crackly. Split in two loaves, rise, bake at 500F w/steam tray 25 minutes, turn off oven 20 minutes.
There’s a lot of unwritten stuff there, but it fits on a card.
Yeah that’s a problem I’ve encountered with old recipes. Written by those who know the procedure they just need to write down the exact portions. My family’s got foods lost to time that we know the ingredients of but not the method.
The donuts my family makes for Hanukkah, the recipe card just says “add flour until sticky” and like. Thanks great grandmother. Worse though is “add a can of cherries” because guess what has changed over time? Size of that can. By several ounces.
Mix until creamed, mix until stiff peaks form, etc. Any of the “action” steps that require further instruction are going to really mess up this tidy format.
COOKING FOR ENGINEERS!!!
I learned how to cook from this site like 20 years ago! I still use that format on my home recipe cards sometimes, but now I’ve just gotten so used to it all recipes look like this on my head. Great format, taters guna tate.
The real site also includes a paragraph description, this is just a quick reference card that’s assuming you have already cooked the recipe a few times, not great for learning it the first time.
I don’t know, what’s a recipe without a popup video and six banners and a “jump to recipe” button that doesn’t work, as well as 99 pictures of spaghetti?
This recipe is missing something. Maybe throw in a backstory.
Eggs from gay chickens and vanilla from gender-fluid vanilla plants.
Vanilla orchids are not gender fluid at all, they are hermaphroditic. And eggs from happy hens just taste better.
I made an app where the the recipe is saved as a JSON file with ingredients separate from the steps. In the steps instead of saying “mix sugar and butter” if says “mix {sugar} and {butter}” and the app adds quantity there directly. I can scale the recipe and still have the quantities inside the body (“mix sugar (100g) and butter (55g)”).
Nice! I thought about doing the same and then discovered https://cooklang.org/ - looks like it’s a similar approach that you describe
I saw cooklang but only after I made my app. It’s interesting but for me the main goal was to use existing recipes. I wanted to just take something I found online and be able to use it, not have to rewrite it. And I wanted it to handle multiple languages. When the first decent LLMs came up I did some testing and they were capable of transforming recipes into JSON so I build my app around that but the JSON had to very simple. I later managed to add couple extra features (like groups of ingredients) but it’s still way simpler than cooklang. Current LLMs could handle cooklang without issues but my app already does everything I need it to do so I’m not changing anything.
Ah very interesting! I found cooklang to be overkill for my needs as well but the fact that there’s an obsidian plugin resulted in me using it now.
What if the recipe steps include modifiers like ‘add half of the butter’?
It will simply say “Add half o the butter (100g)” and you have divide it yourself. It’s very simple.
BUT
Some recipes will have the same ingredient multiple times like:
Filling: - 100 g sugar - 50 g butter Dough: - 500 g flour - 100 g butterand the app will distinguish between them and put the correct amount in the correct part of the body.
Sauce or is it proprietary?
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.curiana.recipes/
Desktop (Linux only) version is here: https://github.com/kandrelczyk/twili-recipes/releases/tag/0.2.10
Disclosure for AI vegans: The app integrates with external LMMs to parse recipes into JSON but they can also be added manually.
sugar and butter do tend to go into sauces
I tried recreating this style of recipe card and ended up using a JSON tree structure to store the recipe. I also added fields for a little more description so that I could generate a little more traditional lists for ingredients and instructions.
https://git.tilde.town/gamerdonkey/recipes_for_engineers/
Example recipe: https://tilde.town/~gamerdonkey/recipes/lemony_olive_oil_zucchini_bread.html JSON representation: https://tilde.town/~gamerdonkey/recipes/lemony_olive_oil_zucchini_bread.json
If you are tired of reading of grandma’s hardships in the great depression here is a trick:
Add “cooked.wiki/” (without the “”) to the beginning of any recipe URL, and it will strip away everything but a column with the ingredients and a column with the recipe.
You have to make an account to store recipes, but that’s totally optional.
Someone mentioned an app for this, there’s also one called Paprika 3 that does something similar. This one you don’t need an account to store recipes though. It can also translate weight to imperial measurements, and solve ingredient quantities for portions like 1/2, etc.
Also generally you can hit the in-page “print” button and the print version is often a one-sheet that cuts out the “my family xyz” bs. To be fair, some of those have real tips or hints or substitutions they don’t include in the recipe proper, but a lot of the time it’s just fluff as you can’t copyright recipes without significant extra steps and exposition.
For Android there’s also this: https://f-droid.org/packages/com.flauschcode.broccoli/
Does the same on your phone just share a link to the app.
I’ve never seen much about f-droid. Is some sort of framework/launcher?
F-droid is an alternative to the Google App Store, but upcoming changes by Google will prevent all third party stores from working on standard Android phones.
Is there a way of calling on the mods to pin this, cause that’s useful as hell
Kind of reminds me of the output of qdirstat.
wait, is qdirstat like windirstat but for linux? If so, I’m downloading it as soon as I get home
Perhaps less relevant for you on Linux, but for any using Windows, WizTree is a hugely faster alternative to WinDirStat in case that’s a pain point.
Filelight is my go-to
Yes. I don’t know if it’s still maintained, but I got my install through AUR and it works
Sequoia view developed at my alma mater. This was cutting edge technology when I was there almost 25 years ago lol
I immediately thought this was windirstat too!
Always loved these blobs!
Why loved past tense?
This seems like it wouldn’t scale well for more complex recipes, and for the given example I’d prefer a list of steps instead, e.g.
- butter and flour an 8x8-in pan
- preheat oven to 350 fahrenheit
- melt unsalted butter (4 oz)
- mix with sugar (1 cup), vanilla extract (1/4 tsp), and 1 shot fresh brewed espresso or very strong coffee
- mix with eggs (2)
- fold in ap flour (1/2 cup), cocoa powder (1/3 cup), baking soda (1/4 tsp) and table salt (1/4 tsp)
- add to pan and bake for 30-40 min
Could always make a few of these for any required subassemblies and then one that puts them together.
But yeah it’s hard to beat a succinct list.
I think it depends on how much of a verbal versus visual thinker you are. I’m very much the latter, and I’ve been using the Cooking for Engineers template for years. One nice thing about it is still having an ingredient list for shopping or mise en place and steps together without repeating a bunch of text.
Also, bigger recipes will usually have parts that are done concurrently, and the boxes with those steps will stack vertically. The example is one sequence all involving the butter, so that’s already really the worst case scenario for this format.
Those are good points! Thanks for sharing.
My dyslexic brain hates this. Words and lists are better.
My typical brain hates this too.
My (probably) autistic brain loves it.
Somebody has been sleeping in my brain - and she’s still there!
It’s a neat diagram, but I’m unsure what they mean by “ignore it.” This is exactly how good recipes have been designed for many many decades, minus the nifty visual cheat sheet and with better instructions. [i.e. Do you beat the eggs? How thoroughly? How do you know when it’s done baking?]
I absolutely get that this might help those who are more visually based learners, but the structure of recipes already follows this pattern. This turns the written instructions into a simplified chart, and I hope more thorough written instructions are simply being elided here.
I do like it though. It would certainly make a nice visual shorthand to glance over at during prep.
I think the diagram is especially useful for those who have done a recipe numerous times.
This seems like a great visual summary and useful for those who can refer to it and use experience to fill in the details.
Nothing substitutes a raw cooking instruction in plain language.
I first saw this notation technique on a recipe card pinned to a stove from the 1850s at a preserved historical village display. I have no reason to doubt that it was the original card, or descended from it.
