Pita Lab93 recipes

Pita Lab

Two overlapping styles in 93 pita recipes

Leave the recipe names aside and group the 93 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 93.

The data splits best into two groups, but they overlap: a silhouette of 0.20, 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 pita.

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 oil, sugar and yeast to the right; 28% of the variation.
Up ↑
More salt, less water upward; 24% of the variation.

Along the first direction oil, sugar and yeast 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 oil

56 recipes · 60% of all 93 · median oven 475°F (245°C), 10 min

Where it differs from all recipes

  • Oilmedian 2.7% vs 4.3% for all

    average rank: 33rd percentile of all recipes · none in 26% (all recipes 17%)

  • Sugarmedian 0.4% vs 0.8% for all

    average rank: 39th percentile of all recipes · none in 44% (all recipes 30%)

  • Yeastmedian 1% vs 1.4% for all

    average rank: 39th percentile of all recipes

Its median recipe, at 400 g flour

Median recipe of group A in grams, against the median of all recipes
IngredientGroup AAll
Water255 g255 g
Oil11 g17 g
Sugar1.5 g3 g
Salt8 g8 g
Yeast4 g6 g

Each line is the group's median for that ingredient, scaled to 400 g of flour.

Closest to the middle of the group

BMore oil and sugar

37 recipes · 40% of all 93 · median oven 475°F (245°C), 16 min

Where it differs from all recipes

  • Oilmedian 7.2% vs 4.3% for all

    average rank: 75th percentile of all recipes

  • Sugarmedian 1.7% vs 0.8% for all

    average rank: 67th percentile of all recipes · none in 8% (all recipes 30%)

  • Yeastmedian 1.7% vs 1.4% for all

    average rank: 66th percentile of all recipes

Its median recipe, at 400 g flour

Median recipe of group B in grams, against the median of all recipes
IngredientGroup BAll
Water250 g255 g
Oil29 g17 g
Sugar7 g3 g
Salt8 g8 g
Yeast7 g6 g

Each line is the group's median for that ingredient, scaled to 400 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 10 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 0.20 · 3 groups 0.20 · 4 groups 0.19. 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 93, 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.