How this got started
About fifteen years ago, I started baking in earnest. The kind of baking where you keep a kitchen notebook because you've ruined too many sourdoughs to keep starting from scratch. By the early 2020s I had a notebook full of conversion tables, ratios I'd validated through trial and error, and tweaks for the elevation I lived at. Stained pages. Coffee rings. Cross-outs.
KitchenMath is a public version of that notebook. The calculators on this site are the math I do most often — coffee ratios, pan substitutions, recipe scaling, altitude adjustments. They're built so you can answer one question and walk away. No long preamble, no signup, no popup asking you to subscribe.
What this site is, and isn't
This site is a set of utility calculators. It's not a recipe blog, a cooking school, or a Substack. The supporting articles below each calculator explain why the math works the way it does, but only because that context helps people use the tools more confidently.
I'm not a professional chef or food scientist. I'm a home cook who spent a long time getting bad results before figuring out what was actually going wrong. The references behind the calculators come from places that have done the real work — the Specialty Coffee Association, King Arthur Baking, Colorado State Extension, the USDA. Where my own experience contradicts those references, I usually default to the references.
What's coming next
The four calculators here are the starting set. As the site grows, I plan to add tools for sourdough starter ratios, brining proportions, candy-thermometer calibration, and yeast substitution. If there's something you'd find useful that isn't here, tell me — most of what's on the site started as someone's specific question.
How the site is funded
KitchenMath is supported by display advertising and occasional affiliate links. If you click an ad or buy something through a link, the site might earn a small commission. None of the calculators or recommendations are influenced by advertisers — what you see is what I'd recommend regardless. Most of the income covers hosting and the occasional research book.
Get in touch
If a calculator gives a result that feels off, or you want a tool I haven't built yet, send a note. I read everything personally.
— Maya