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Problem of the Week
Problem A and Solution
Cupcake Bonanza

Problem

Archie, Lin, and Umar are making vanilla cupcakes for a bake sale. They need to make \(8\) dozen cupcakes using the recipe below.

Recipe to make \(1\) dozen vanilla cupcakes:

  1. How much of each ingredient do they need to make \(8\) dozen cupcakes?

  2. They have enough salt, baking powder, and vanilla already. They do not have any of the other ingredients. When they go to the store, they see the ingredients they need are sold in packages in the following sizes:

    How many of each package of the ingredients do they need to buy to have enough to make all of the cupcakes?

Solution

  1. Since the recipe makes \(1\) dozen cupcakes, to calculate how much of each ingredient we need to make \(8\) dozen cupcakes we must multiply the amount of each ingredient by \(8\). For the larger numbers, we can do this calculation by skip counting or multiple additions.

    For example, calculating the amount of flour required we could
    skip count: \(250\), \(500\), \(750\), \(1000\), \(1250\), \(1500\), \(1750\), \(2000\),
    or do multiple additions: \(250 + 250 + 250 + 250 + 250 + 250 + 250 + 250 = 2000\).

    Another way we could calculate \(8\) times some number is to double the value \(3\) times. Notice that if we double the number \(1\), we get \(2\). If we double the number \(2\), we get \(4\). If we double the number \(4\), we get \(8\). If we follow this same procedure with any starting number, the result will be \(8\) times the original value. For example, if we double \(250\), we get \(500\). If we double \(500\), we get \(1000\). If we double \(1000\), we get \(2000\).

    Using any of these procedures, we determine that \(8 \times 250 = 2000\).

    The total amount of each ingredient needed to make \(8\) dozen cupcakes is below.

  2. We can use the total amounts calculated in part (a) to determine how many packages of each ingredient they must buy.