Recipe ratings (1 hour)

Information in this post is correct as of Saturday 26th April 2014.

Following on from my introductory post two weeks ago, it's time to apply some recipe ratings to some dishes. Every other week I'm going to write a report on the recipes of a certain duration, starting with the shortest and working up to the longest. I've not assigned ratings to recipes of less than 1 hour in duration because they don't have the competition - I can't compare them because there are too few!

So we will start with the 1 hour dishes. For the shorter foods, we need to be careful because when we consider their stats on a per hour basis they tend to look outstanding relative to longer recipes. For example let's compare the Potato Wedges (Basic Oven) with Jerk Chicken (Basic Oven):

Recipe	Duration (hrs)	Profit/hr	Portions/hr	XP/hr
Potato Wedges	1	600	225	24.0
Jerk Chicken	12	363	121	6.8

Clearly the per hour numbers are superior for the Potato Wedges, but to capitalise on this, you would need to be alert and serving up the 1 hour recipe throughout the day. This is because to earn as much profit overall as for a single Jerk Chicken serving you need to cook it eight times. Likewise to match the total portions of the chicken, the wedges would need to be prepared on seven occasions. However the difference in XP per hour is enough to ensure that only four batches of the Potato Wedges are needed to top one Jerk Chicken.

So if you're around all day and remember to serve your food, then most of the shorter recipes are the best for maximising your yield across the board. However if you can't commit, then go for a longer dish which will fill the day.

Now that I've put that warning behind us, let's dive into some of the numbers...

There are 35 recipes of 1 hour duration in all, 33 of which are currently active. That makes this duration the third most populated (after 4 and 8 hours). A large number of the 1 hour dishes are found on the Basic Grill, including the top dish for profit, Portabello Mushroom (Basic Grill). The 1,000 coins profit for the mushrooms is just ahead of the Grilled Corn (Basic Grill), with the next batch of recipes falling well below these two. But the mushrooms provide their profit across much more portions, meaning you get significantly less profit per plate - the Mustache Cupcake (Basic Oven) is the best 1 hour offering for profit per plate.

Can the Portabello Mushroom be bettered for portions? The answer is yes, but only by one dish, namely Fish and Chips (Basic Oven). The 800 plates produced by cooking this recipe edges the 750 for the mushrooms, but there's a catch (no pun intended!) The Fish and Chips are hugely compromised by a very average profit margin. As a result you earn well under 1 coin of profit per plate, making the Fish and Chips the third worst recipe across all durations in terms of profit per plate. Here's the effect on its rating:

Fish and Chips
Profit	XP gain	Portions	Profit per plate	Availability	Rating
6	2	10	1	9	5.3

Of course a weak XP gain makes a big difference, but so does the average profit and basement profit per plate. In the end a recipe with a perfect portions rating obtains a medicore overall rating.

I mentioned XP there, and the Portabello Mushroom is again up there on that front. But there are two recipes which really stand out when it comes to XP gain. The Thick Cut Bacon (Old West Oven) and Spring Salad (Basic Stove) are both table toppers with 61 and 60 XP respectively. You can't earn more XP per hour without shifting down to the very short recipes.

Thick Cut Bacon
Profit	XP gain	Portions	Profit per plate	Availability	Rating
5	10	2	10	5	6.4

As you can see, the profit and portions of the bacon are nothing to get excited about, which rules it out of the race for the best all-rounder. But that 61 XP for an hour's work is excellent - if you are committed and want to level up quickly this is the dish to cook. If you don't have access to the Old West Oven then the Spring Salad (available from level 8) is equally strong.

So what is the best all-rounder? Well it's featured near the top in each of the main categories, so it should come as no surprise that the Portabello Mushroom is the first inductee to the Recipe Hall of Fame.

Portabello Mushroom
Profit	XP gain	Portions	Profit per plate	Availability	Rating
10	5	10	3	6	7.6

With two perfect tens for profit and portions, it was always going to be a contender. The profit per plate is a slight sticking point (but remember is only a minor factor) while the XP gain rating is distorted by the gulf between the leading two XP dishes and the rest. In a distant second place is the Grilled Corn with a 6.7 rating while the Gourmet Hot Dog (Basic Grill) completes the podium.

But generally speaking, if you want to cook a 1 hour recipe and have no preferences then the Portabello Mushroom is your best option.