Important Measurements, French Terms, and Blooper of the Week
This cooking for a crowd business involves a lot of math! I feel I’m constantly learning new facts and important tips that will help as we calculate quantities for future menus and groups.
I realize I need to put together a “cheat sheet” to help with all these technical, mathematical facts. Here’s what I’ve learned this week:
1 carton of liquid eggs = 20 eggs
I carton of liquid eggs feeds 8.75 people scrambled eggs. That fact is far too complicated for me. I just say one carton feeds almost 10 people…and then I throw in an extra carton.
Use 1 cup basmati rice per 1.75 cups boiling water.
I used 9 cups of rice and 15.75 cups boiling water for 75 teenagers. They ate every little bite.
For future figuring, figure 1/3 – 1/2 cups dry rice per person. (Yikes! The math on that one will be tricky!)
One loaf of homemade bread sliced with our bread slicer yields 20 slices.
Figure one piece per person and add one extra loaf to the serving table.
We’re still trying to figure out the perfect sized slices for desserts made in the hotel pans. We know for certain it needs to be smaller than 8 x 3. Those dessert pieces were big enough for giants! (tee hee!!)
We’re now thinking that perhaps 9 x 4 or 5 would be a better size. I’ll confirm that later.
Also, a normal recipe for a 9 x 13 pan can be multiplied 2.5 times to fit a hotel pan. I haven’t tried that out personally yet, so I’ll get back to you on that fact, too.
I’ve also learned through Connie that cooking “properly” involves a lot of french terms.
Mercy sakes!
I need to brush up on my French.
But, wait a minute…I never learned it in the first place! ha ha…
My French terms for the week are:
- battoneted (What? You want me to beat up the carrots??)
- julienned (not just a pretty girl’s name and pictured above in the form of peppers),
- and mise on place ( I need to what??)
And our blooper of the week? See that fettuccini?
It was carefully measured out and cooked to feed 55 people. It could have easily fed 100!!
oopsy doopsy!
I think this is the hardest part of cooking for a crowd! Its always a guessing game for me when Im trying to figure out how much to make…Im not very good at math either! Pasta is definitely the hardest to get right 🙂
Ps. that carrot cake looks delicious!! And I love that you are making the bread from scratch! That was one of my favorite things about camp food when I was a camper.
Not sure if this will help any, but we were cutting the carrot cakes 10x 5 or 4 over the summer. ;O) Glad to see you’re enjoying yourself in there and the kitchen looks awesome!
Wow! I didn’t think there was so much match involved!