Blueberry Muffins Lab272 recipes

Blueberry Muffins Lab

No clear styles in 272 blueberry muffin recipes

Leave the recipe names aside and group the 272 recipes by their 7 ingredient ratios alone, so that recipes built alike land together. Each group is named only by the numbers: the ingredients where its recipes sit furthest from the middle of all 272.

The best split found, into two groups, has a silhouette of 0.17, on a scale where 0 is no separation and 1 is complete. That is too low to call them styles: these recipes form one continuous spread. The groups below are its two ends, shown for reference.

The recipes on one map

Every recipe, placed on the two directions along which the ratios vary most (a principal component projection). Close dots are recipes built alike. The lettered rings mark the middle of each group.

AB
Across →
More blueberries, sugar and fat to the right; 28% of the variation.
Up ↑
More leavening and dairy, less salt upward; 18% of the variation.

Along the first direction blueberries, sugar, fat and salt all rise together, each measured against the flour. A recipe sits far along it by using more of them or by using less flour, which the ratios cannot tell apart. The groups sit apart mostly along this direction.

The two ends of the spread

ALess sugar, fewer blueberries

141 recipes · 52% of all 272 · median oven 375°F (190°C), 22 min

Where it differs from all recipes

  • Sugarmedian 56% vs 68% for all

    average rank: 31st percentile of all recipes

  • Blueberriesmedian 67% vs 80% for all

    average rank: 35th percentile of all recipes

  • Fatmedian 32% vs 40% for all

    average rank: 36th percentile of all recipes

Its median recipe, at 250 g flour

Median recipe of group A in grams, against the median of all recipes
IngredientGroup AAll
Blueberries165 g200 g
Sugar140 g170 g
Fat80 g100 g
Egg80 g85 g
Dairy170 g165 g
Leavening11 g10 g
Salt0.5 g2 g

Each line is the group's median for that ingredient, scaled to 250 g of flour.

Closest to the middle of the group

BMore sugar and blueberries

131 recipes · 48% of all 272 · median oven 375°F (190°C), 21 min

Where it differs from all recipes

  • Sugarmedian 80% vs 68% for all

    average rank: 71st percentile of all recipes

  • Blueberriesmedian 95% vs 80% for all

    average rank: 66th percentile of all recipes

  • Fatmedian 45% vs 40% for all

    average rank: 65th percentile of all recipes

Its median recipe, at 250 g flour

Median recipe of group B in grams, against the median of all recipes
IngredientGroup BAll
Blueberries235 g200 g
Sugar200 g170 g
Fat115 g100 g
Egg100 g85 g
Dairy145 g165 g
Leavening10 g10 g
Salt3 g2 g

Each line is the group's median for that ingredient, scaled to 250 g of flour.

Closest to the middle of the group

How the groups are found

Each ratio is converted to a z-score (how many standard deviations a recipe sits from the mean), capped at 3 so one extreme recipe cannot claim a group, and k-means sorts the recipes into k groups, trying k from 2 to 4. Each k runs from 16 fixed starting points and keeps the tightest result, so the page is the same on every build. No group may hold fewer than 28 recipes.

The number of groups is the one with the best silhouette, which compares how close each recipe is to its own group with how close it is to the next one. By number of groups: 2 groups 0.17 · 3 groups 0.17 · 4 groups 0.15. At 0.25 or more the page calls the groups separate; from 0.18 to 0.25, overlapping; under 0.18, no clear styles.

A group's name lists the one to three ingredients where its recipes rank furthest from the middle of all 272, on average. “More” and “less” are relative to the whole dataset, and the names say nothing about texture or taste, which the ratios alone do not show. The median recipe of a group is, like the typical recipe on the overview, the middle of each ingredient separately, not one real recipe. The recipes listed under each group are the ones nearest its center, at most two from any one site.