Pancakes Lab802 recipes

Pancakes Lab

No clear styles in 802 pancake recipes

Leave the recipe names aside and group the 802 recipes by their 6 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 802.

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 salt, liquid and fat to the right; 26% of the variation.
Up ↑
More sugar and egg upward; 19% of the variation.

Along the first direction salt, liquid, fat and leavening 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

AMore salt and liquid

449 recipes · 56% of all 802

Where it differs from all recipes

  • Saltmedian 1.2% vs 0.9% for all

    average rank: 66th percentile of all recipes

  • Liquidmedian 182% vs 159% for all

    average rank: 62nd percentile of all recipes

  • Fatmedian 22% vs 16% for all

    average rank: 63rd percentile of all recipes · none in 11% (all recipes 25%)

Its median recipe, at 250 g flour

Median recipe of group A in grams, against the median of all recipes
IngredientGroup AAll
Liquid455 g400 g
Egg100 g100 g
Sugar45 g40 g
Fat55 g41 g
Leavening15 g14 g
Salt3 g2.5 g

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

Closest to the middle of the group

BLess salt and liquid

353 recipes · 44% of all 802

Where it differs from all recipes

  • Saltmedian 0.2% vs 0.9% for all

    average rank: 30th percentile of all recipes · none in 36% (all recipes 19%)

  • Liquidmedian 128% vs 159% for all

    average rank: 34th percentile of all recipes

  • Fatmedian 8.7% vs 16% for all

    average rank: 33rd percentile of all recipes · none in 42% (all recipes 25%)

Its median recipe, at 250 g flour

Median recipe of group B in grams, against the median of all recipes
IngredientGroup BAll
Liquid320 g400 g
Egg100 g100 g
Sugar33 g40 g
Fat22 g41 g
Leavening11 g14 g
Salt0.5 g2.5 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 81 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 802, 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.