Melanie is making lemonade and finds a recipe that calls for 1 part lemon juice, 2 parts sugar, and 8 parts water. She juices 2 lemons to obtain 6 tablespoons of lemon juice. How much sugar and water will she need to make lemonade with the same ratio of ingredients as the recipe? (Hint: 1 cup equals 16 tablespoons) Ingredient Amount Flour 3c Salt
tsp Yeast 2 tsp Water 1c Olive Oil 4 tsp 9. The pizza dough recipe shown makes one batch of dough. Charlie wants to make a half
The Correct Answer and Explanation is:
Answer:
Since Melanie has 6 tablespoons of lemon juice, and the recipe calls for a ratio of 1 part lemon juice : 2 parts sugar : 8 parts water, we can use this ratio to find how much sugar and water she needs.
Let’s break it down step-by-step:
Step 1: Identify the ratio
The ratio is:
- Lemon Juice : Sugar : Water = 1 : 2 : 8
This means for every 1 part lemon juice, you need:
- 2 parts sugar
- 8 parts water
Step 2: Determine the “1 part” value
Melanie has 6 tablespoons of lemon juice.
Since that corresponds to the “1 part” in the ratio, we multiply the other parts by 6:
- Sugar = 2 parts × 6 = 12 tablespoons
- Water = 8 parts × 6 = 48 tablespoons
Step 3: Convert tablespoons to cups (if needed)
- 16 tablespoons = 1 cup
So: - Sugar:
12÷16=0.7512 \div 16 = 0.7512÷16=0.75 cups = ¾ cup sugar - Water:
48÷16=348 \div 16 = 348÷16=3 cups = 3 cups water
Final Answer:
- Sugar: ¾ cup (or 12 tablespoons)
- Water: 3 cups (or 48 tablespoons)
Explanation
This problem is about using a given ratio to scale up a recipe based on how much of one ingredient you have. The original lemonade recipe uses the ratio 1:2:8 for lemon juice, sugar, and water. This tells us the relative amounts of each ingredient — for every 1 unit of lemon juice, there should be 2 units of sugar and 8 units of water. Importantly, the actual size of the “unit” doesn’t matter as long as it’s consistent across all ingredients.
In Melanie’s case, she juiced lemons and ended up with 6 tablespoons of lemon juice. We treat this as the “1 part” from the original ratio. That means the “2 parts” of sugar becomes 2 × 6 = 12 tablespoons, and the “8 parts” of water becomes 8 × 6 = 48 tablespoons.
Since most kitchen measurements are often given in cups, we convert tablespoons to cups. There are 16 tablespoons in a cup. Dividing 12 tablespoons by 16 gives us ¾ cup of sugar, and dividing 48 tablespoons by 16 gives us 3 cups of water.
Understanding and applying ratios in this way is helpful not just in cooking but in many real-life situations where scaling is needed. Once you determine the base unit — in this case, 6 tablespoons of lemon juice — you can multiply the other parts accordingly to maintain the balance and flavor of the recipe.
