Focaccia Lab261 recipes

Focaccia Lab

Two overlapping styles in 261 focaccia recipes

Leave the recipe names aside and group the 261 recipes by their 5 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 261.

The data splits best into two groups, but they overlap: a silhouette of 0.21, on a scale where 0 is no separation and 1 is complete. Read them as tendencies within one broad spread rather than separate kinds of focaccia.

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 sugar, yeast and olive oil to the right; 30% of the variation.
Up ↑
More salt and water upward; 23% of the variation.

Along the first direction sugar, yeast and olive oil 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 groups

ALess yeast and sugar

160 recipes · 61% of all 261 · median oven 425°F (220°C), 25 min

Where it differs from all recipes

  • Yeastmedian 0.8% vs 1.2% for all

    average rank: 36th percentile of all recipes

  • Olive oilmedian 7.3% vs 10% for all

    average rank: 38th percentile of all recipes

  • Sugarmedian 0% vs 0.1% for all

    average rank: 37th percentile of all recipes · none in 68% (all recipes 49%)

Its median recipe, at 500 g flour

Median recipe of group A in grams, against the median of all recipes
IngredientGroup AAll
Water350 g360 g
Olive oil37 g50 g
Salt10 g10 g
Yeast4 g6 g
Sugarnone0.5 g

Each line is the group's median for that ingredient, scaled to 500 g of flour.

Closest to the middle of the group

BMore yeast and olive oil

101 recipes · 39% of all 261 · median oven 400°F (205°C), 23 min

Where it differs from all recipes

  • Yeastmedian 1.7% vs 1.2% for all

    average rank: 73rd percentile of all recipes

  • Olive oilmedian 16% vs 10% for all

    average rank: 69th percentile of all recipes

  • Sugarmedian 2% vs 0.1% for all

    average rank: 70th percentile of all recipes · none in 18% (all recipes 49%)

Its median recipe, at 500 g flour

Median recipe of group B in grams, against the median of all recipes
IngredientGroup BAll
Water380 g360 g
Olive oil80 g50 g
Salt10 g10 g
Yeast9 g6 g
Sugar10 g0.5 g

Each line is the group's median for that ingredient, scaled to 500 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 27 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 0.21 · 3 groups 0.20 · 4 groups 0.22. 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 261, 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.