How to Read Recipes
Recipe Anatomy
Each recipe has certain parts, but they aren't always in the same place, or included in every recipe. The most necessary parts are Title, Ingredients and Instructions. If there isn't a title, it will be harder to interpret the recipe. Is it pancakes, or waffles? The recipe just says to cook it at the end, what?! Second, the ingredients are usually, but not always written out in a list at the beginning of a recipe, more about actual reading them later. But, sometimes they are interspersed into the instructions, and sometimes both at once. So, make sure to read through all the instructions looking for hidden extra ingredients that you might not have on hand. Lastly, the instructions, this is the catalyst of the recipe, it tells you how to mix the ingredients together to form the dish indicated by the title.
There are, however other parts that crop up from time to time. Yield, or how much food it will make. It isn't always good to judge by the yield, as the inventor of the recipe might have had a different appetite than you. Where they think that it could be shared between three people as a good meal, it ends up being able to fill ten people to the brim. A more trustworthy source, is to look through the ingredients, and add up the amounts of everything. if it calls for ten eggs, and five cups of flour and four cups of milk, it's going to feed a LOT of people. Sometimes, the amount of time the recipe will take to cook, or the number of calories per "serving" will be included, keep these in mind, but they aren't crucial to completing the actual food preparation.
As a final warning, if using a recipe card, always check the back for additional information.