· Christmas · Maths
Cookie Ratio: free Christmas baking ratio game
The recipe serves 6, the party is 18. Scale every ingredient before the oven heats up.
What is Cookie Ratio?
Six festive recipes, six party sizes: gingerbread stars, snowball cookies, hot cocoa, spiced apple punch… For each one, find the scale factor first (new ÷ old), then scale every ingredient before the oven is hot. The factors get trickier as you go, from ×3 to ×1½, ×1¾ and ×½, and spoon amounts tidy up into tablespoons.
Cookie Ratio is a free Christmas maths game. Every recipe is written for one number of people and the party is another: 6 becomes 18, 4 becomes 10, 12 becomes 21. First you pick the scale factor, then you scale every ingredient, from grams of flour to teaspoons of cinnamon and whole eggs, before the oven is hot.
The wrong answers are the classic slips: adding the extra people instead of multiplying, flipping the ratio, forgetting to scale, or rounding the factor. After each answer you see the sum, and spoon amounts are converted so you learn that 6 teaspoons are 2 tablespoons along the way.
At a glance
- Category
- Seasonal
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Play time
- 2–4 min
- Price
- Free, in your browser, sign-up optional
How to play
- Find the factor
- Party size ÷ recipe size: a recipe for 6 made for 18 is ×3.
- Scale everything
- Multiply every amount by the factor. Never add the extra people.
- Kitchen units
- 3 teaspoons make 1 tablespoon, 1,000 g is 1 kg, and eggs come whole.
- Score
- 50 for the factor, 100 per ingredient, up to 100 oven bonus for a recipe with no slip. A wrong amount costs one of 3 cookies.
Scoring
50 points for the right scale factor, 100 for each ingredient scaled right, and an oven bonus of up to 100 for a recipe with no slip (the faster, the bigger).
Six recipes, with factors from ×2 and ×3 up to ×1¾ and ×½. A wrong amount costs one of 3 cookies.
What it trains
- Ratios
- Finding the factor as new ÷ old.
- Proportional thinking
- Multiplying every amount by the same factor, never adding the difference.
- Kitchen units
- Converting teaspoons to tablespoons and grams to kilograms.
Strategy and tips
- Divide new by old
- The factor is party size ÷ recipe size. 18 ÷ 6 = 3, and 21 ÷ 12 = 1¾.
- Multiply, never add
- Twelve more guests doesn't mean twelve more grams: every amount grows by the same factor.
- Split the factor
- ×2½ is ×2 plus half again: 200 g becomes 400 + 100 = 500 g.
- Tidy the spoons
- 3 tsp = 1 tbsp, so 6 tsp is 2 tbsp. Bigger units are easier to measure.
- Check with eggs
- Eggs come whole: if the egg count isn't a whole number, check your factor.
Why play Cookie Ratio?
Ratios are everywhere: recipes, maps, prices per kilo, medicine doses, paint mixes. The core move is always the same: find the factor and apply it to everything, never add the difference. Cookie Ratio trains that habit with numbers you'd meet in a real kitchen, and it makes the classic mistakes visible so you stop making them.
Frequently asked questions
Is Cookie Ratio free?
Yes. It is free and runs in your browser, with no download. Signing up is optional.
What units does it use?
Grams and millilitres, whole eggs and other whole items, and teaspoons and tablespoons (3 teaspoons make 1 tablespoon). Every answer is computed exactly, with no rounding.
Is it only whole-number factors?
No. The first recipes use ×2 or ×3, then halves (×1½, ×2½), then thirds and quarters (×1¼, ×1¾) and factors below one (×½) to make a smaller batch.
How do I get the oven bonus?
Scale a whole recipe, factor and every ingredient, with no wrong answer. The faster you finish, the bigger the bonus, up to 100 points.