A dessert recipe call for 3 cups of flour and 1 cup of sugar. It serves 4 people. If the recipe must be altered to serve 12 people, how many cups of flour will be needed?
To find out how many cups of flour will be needed to serve 12 people, we first need to determine the ratio of flour to the number of servings.
The original recipe calls for 3 cups of flour and serves 4 people. This means that for every 4 people, we need 3 cups of flour.
To alter the recipe to serve 12 people, we can set up a proportionality equation:
3 cups of flour / 4 people = x cups of flour / 12 people
To solve for x, we multiply both sides of the equation by 12 (the number of people we want to serve):
12 * (3 cups of flour / 4 people) = x cups of flour
12 * 3 cups of flour / 4 people = x cups of flour
36 cups of flour / 4 people = x cups of flour
9 cups of flour = x
Therefore, to serve 12 people, we will need 9 cups of flour.