Recipe ratings (8 hours)

Information in this post is correct as of Monday 18th August 2014.

Apologies for the lateness of this post (usually I release these on Saturdays, but have been away this weekend). Once again we're delving into the recipe ratings, and it's a mighty competitive duration of dish we're dealing with.

The 8 hour recipes are the second most populous in the game after the 4 hour efforts, with a grand total of 51. Of these, 18 are goal recipes and are not available to newcomers, while another four have been removed at some point, so are not available to anyone.

 Recent recipe rating posts

 02/08/14 7 hours
 19/07/14 6 hours
 21/06/14 5 hours
 07/06/14 4 hours
 24/05/14 3 hours

So let's now take a deep breath and plunge into the analysis of this tough duration. I'd like to commence with the matter of XP gain because last month's goals included the Rainbow Trout (Fish Stand) and Crab Dip (Riverboat Oven), both of which are towards the top of the charts. They yield 132 and 130 XP respectively, which is impressive, although is still a smidgeon lower than the category leader, the Escargots with Lamb (Basic Grill). Here's it's full ratings:

Escargots with Lamb
Profit	XP gain	Portions	Profit per plate	Availability	Rating
9	10	7	10	5	8.8

That's a strong contender and will take some usurping. The only sticking point is the availability score which reflects the fact that you have to wait until level 56 to access the lamb. But in the major factors it performs admirably, with an imposing number for profit helping give an excellent overall rating.

But if the Escargots with Lamb isn't the dish lighting up in purple for profit, then what is? It turns out there are five recipes which offer more profit, with the Pumpkin Cheesecake (Basic Oven) the most profitable food. It delivers a net 4,230 coins for each time you cook it, with the Breakfast Dog (Basic Grill) the only other recipe getting close. Thus they are the two lucky enough to score a ten for profit in the ratings game.

But where do this pair of dishes stand in the overall stakes? Here's their ratings:

Pumpkin Cheesecake
Profit	XP gain	Portions	Profit per plate	Availability	Rating
10	9	8	10	4	9.0

Breakfast Dog
Profit	XP gain	Portions	Profit per plate	Availability	Rating
10	8	8	10	5	8.8

Lots of cool colours there! The cheesecake and dog both rate similarly, with the 0.2 advantage for the cheesecake in overall scoring being a result of shading the XP variable. The dog is unlocked six levels sooner, but this isn't enough to have a significant effect on the final outcome.

Bringing the Escargots with Lamb back in, the Breakfast Dog manages to match it, while the Pumpkin Cheesecake beats it, even if it's only by a slim margin. So the cheesecake takes the throne. But we've yet to find the highest portion producer, and that could yet swing things. Unlike in the last couple of recipe rating posts, we do have a few different values of coins per plate, which means that the profit and portion numbers don't correspond equally across all the dishes.

And sure enough the top two 8 hour recipes for portions give only 2 coins per plate (4 coins per plate is the norm) which is why they don't feature at the head of the profit leaderboard. They are Plum Pudding (Basic Stove) and Tomato Bisque (Basic Stove), with the former being a runaway victor in the portions factor:

Plum Pudding
Profit	XP gain	Portions	Profit per plate	Availability	Rating
6	5	10	1	8	6.1

Clearly though the pudding is not a challenger to the big prize of top all-rounder. The profit and XP gain stats are okay without being notable, and there's also a red in there for profit per plate, stemming from the lower coins per plate.

So it looks like we have ourselves a champion! The Pumpkin Cheesecake has landed a spot in the Recipe Hall of Fame courtesy of its leading profit number and really strong XP and portion figures.