Can a Computer Write the Internet's Best Cake Recipe? Google Thinks So.

Some think AI—artificial intelligence—could take over the world. Others fear that machine learning, a nascent technology that feeds data to computers and then allows it to customize and make its own decisions, could steal jobs, rob us of our humanity and render us useless. Sure, all of that could happen. In the meantime, Google is programming AI to bake cakes

Building off the popularity of baking during quarantine, the team at Google put together a machine learning model to get to the bottom of baking science.

So how does this work exactly? The two Google employees behind the initiative, Sarah Robinson and Dale Markowitz, started off by culling hundreds of dessert recipes from across the internet. For the sake of uniformity and ease, they converted all the recipes to ounces and “whittled them down to a few essential ingredients (yeast, flour, sugar, eggs, butter and a few other things).” Using a Google Cloud tool called AutoML Tables, they created a model to analyze the proportions of ingredients in each recipe and determine if it was a cookie, a cake, or a bread. They also took care to sift through all the submitted recipes and move sweets like banana or zucchini bread into the cake category (because even Paul Hollywood says they are).

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Using this model, they were then able to develop new, unique recipe combinations. In this experiment, they made two Frankstein’s-monster esque creations that mashed together a bread and a cookie and a cake and a cookie. Behold: the “brookie” (bread/cookie) and the “cakie” (cookie/cake). Each resulting recipe combines 50% of its components and, supposedly, makes something that can only be described as a baked hybrid.

I have to say, I’m eager to give the recipes a try. The cakie looks like a round sponge cake but with that delicious cookie crispiness, while the breakies look like pillowy, doughy cookies. They’ve included both recipes online. I’d try both, why not?

But because I’m a food writer and not even remotely versed in all things technological, feel free to check out the description of their study in their own words here. Or better yet, watch them explain:

Would you give these recipes a try? Let us know in the comments below.

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