Lesson 20 — Activity 3: Time in Cooking


Getting Ready



The last activity in this lesson will focus on an important part of everyday living: thinking about timing when cooking.


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Time is a very important factor when you are cooking. If you don't allow for enough time, your food will not be done. If you let it cook too long, your pet might not even eat it!

While every stove has a timer on it, not all of them work. It is a very good idea to know what time something is supposed to be done on another clock.

You can do this by adding the time required by a recipe to the current time on your clock.

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For example, if you put in a turkey and it will take 5 hours to cook and it is 3 p.m. now, by adding 5 hours to the time, you know that the turkey will be done at 8 p.m.

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But what about a recipe for a cake that takes 45 minutes to bake? The current time is 1:20 p.m. We need to add 45 minutes to the time to find out when the cake will be done.

We can do this just like we did in the other activities.


1. We know there are 60 minutes in an hour, so we can calculate how many minutes there are before it is 2 p.m.

60 – 20 = 40
There are 40 minutes left until it is 2 p.m.

2. Then we subtract the number we got in part one from the baking time.

45 – 40 = 5
The cake will be ready 5 minutes after 2 p.m., or at 2:05 p.m.


Knowing how to calculate when something will be cooked also allows you to plan when you are going to put a second dish on to cook. For example, the turkey from above won't be done until 8 p.m. We need to have the potatoes ready at the same time. They take 30 minutes to cook. By knowing that the turkey will be ready at 8 p.m., we now know to put the potatoes on at 7:30 pm. so they will be ready at the same time!



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  Self-check!

Try This!

Try this activity on cooking times and how to determine what time the food will be done.


You are cooking a burrito. The package says that it takes 25 minutes in the oven. It is 2:45 p.m. right now. What time will the burrito be done?

Step 1: determine how many minutes until the next full clock hour (i.e. from 2:45 p.m. to 3:00 p.m.)

60 - 45 = 15 minutes

Step 2: determine how many minutes are left to cook after 3:00 p.m.

25 - 15 = 10 minutes


Therefore, the burrito will be finished cooking at 3:10 p.m.


Stew is on the menu for supper. It is in the crock pot and will take about 4 hours to cook. It has been cooking for about 40 minutes. How many more minutes until it is done?

Step 1: determine how many minutes in total will the stew take to cook

4 x 60 = 240 minutes.

Step 2: determine how many minutes are left until it is done

240 - 40 = 200 minutes.


Therefore, there are 200 minutes left to cook the stew.


The menu for supper consists of peas, roast and potatoes. The peas take about 10 minutes to cook; the potatoes take about 30 minutes to cook and the roast takes 2 hours. If you want to have supper at 6:00 p.m., what time should you start cooking each item?

Roast goes on at 4:00 p.m. (6 - 2 = 4)

Potatoes goes on at 5:30 p.m. (60 - 30 = 30)

Peas goes on at 5:50 p.m. (60 - 10 = 50)