So R's been busy with some things.. work, classes, baking... mostly baking. And so to help her out with her recipes, (keeping them organized, calculating weights, approximating costs, etc.,) I've come up with a nifty Excel spreadsheet. It allows her to enter any recipe in more or less any measure, recalculates and converts to US and metric units, scales for batch size, and semi-automatically calculates costs, ("semi" meaning you still may need to enter in a few price details if it's not already included in the list I have set up). This is still far from perfect, but it works for our needs, even if we still have to fudge some information around.
I've tried to make this as easy to use as possible, but I'm pretty sure it's still going to give some folks a headache. Being such, I've locked the worksheets to prevent any accidental additions, deletions, or general tomfoolery. If you'd like to unlock and add your own customized additions, just send an email to underthecoppertree@gmail.com and we'll gladly oblige. Also, this is a macro-enabled worksheet that uses Visual Basic scripting, so you'll need to enable content and macros to be able to easily add recipes. I promise there's no malicious software or coding that's included, and I won't be able to peer through your webcam and see what's happening in the privacy of your living room.. (P.S. Dan, put a shirt on.)
Fields that you can select you can edit. This includes the 'Recipe Name', 'Ingredients', measurements (except for calculated measurements), instruction areas, batch size, yield, and 'Ingredient List'. If an ingredient is added that is found in the 'Ingredient List', pricing information is automatically calculated and scaled to the amount called for in the recipe. Price of ingredient used will automatically appear to the left of the name, and the total cost of the recipe will be updated. If an ingredient is not found in the 'Ingredient List', you can enter or update the information as required. Names must match exactly (ie. "egg" is not equal to "eggs"), though you can create multiple entries to account for this. Cost will be calculated using the calculated measurements, so it won't matter if you buy N oz of a certain ingredient but need X cups -- it will give you a price regardless. Since '#' is not a quantifiable unit of measure, a value for '#' will need to be entered in the 'Ingredient List' to calculate cost per item.
To add a recipe, simply click the Add button. This will copy your recipe to a new worksheet, named via the 'Recipe Name' field. Be careful though, this new recipe will be shown in the newly focused window. You will need to click on the "Add New Recipe" tab again, (which will still be populated with the recipe you just added), and hit the Reset button to clear the fields and ready the worksheet for another new recipe. .. Like I said, this is a work in progress.
Anyway, if you'd like to try it out you can download it from here. I'd love your input, questions, comments, suggestions, large sums of money, etc. Leave a comment or email underthecoppertree@gmail.com.
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