Thanks to a free prototyping course facilitated by London +Acumen with content by IDEO, my maths app for chefs has been taking shape. At least on paper. Aided and abetted by an amazing team, it’s been heartwarming to see how quickly it has progressed from an idea in my head to something tangible in a two-hour weekly workshop held at Impact Hub Islington.
Where does the ‘why’ for this app come from? My last job as a pastry chef was in event catering and I saw so many times how when a chef didn’t calculate yields correctly, it meant starting the recipe over to make up for the shortfall. And if you’re serving that dessert the same evening, it means that you also have to allow enough time for it to set or chill before it’s transported to the venue a couple of hours before the event takes place.
On other occasions I had colleagues ask me to calculate the yield from a tray of brownies. Or what 2% of a quantity was. These are relatively simple calculations and to me it seemed unacceptable that these very talented people had to spend time asking around for answers, especially when chefs are always pressed for time.
What if chefs could have the answers at their fingertips?