AreaCacao Docs

Create, edit, duplicate, and safely delete your own formula types to validate any recipe.

What it is

A formula type is the template you validate a recipe against: a set of parameters (Water, Sugars, fats, aw, pH…), each with its target range (minimum, maximum, and optimum). AreaCacao ships five predefined types — Bonbon ganache, Soft caramel, Pâte de fruit, Creamy praline and Truffle — but you can create your own to validate recipes that don't fit those five families.

This guide explains how to manage them: create, edit, duplicate, and safely delete. To understand the panel where they're used, see Formula validation.

Before you start

Open any recipe in the editor (/validation?id=<id>).
Expand the side charts panel and go to the Validation sub-tab.

Open the type manager

Click the panel's gear icon (Manage custom types) or, from the Full analysis, Manage custom types. The Custom formula types window opens, with two sections:

Your formula types — one card per type you've created, with its name, its category, and its number of parameters. Each card has three actions: View (eye), Edit (pencil), and Delete (trash). Next to the heading is the Create formula type button.
Built-in — a collapsed section. Expand it to see the note "Duplicate one to create your editable version." and the formulator's five types, read-only, each with the View and Duplicate actions.

If you haven't created any yet, instead of cards you'll see "You haven't created any custom formula types yet." and "Create one from scratch or duplicate a built-in to adjust it."

You can also get there from the type selector: Create custom type opens the creation form directly.

You can only edit and delete your own types. The five predefined types are read-only: to start from one, use Duplicate.

Create a formula type

Open the form

In the type manager, click Create formula type. The Create new formula type form opens, already containing three parameters to get you started — Water, Sugars, and Other fats, with a 0 to 100 range — which you can adjust or remove.

Fill in name, description, and category

Formula type name — for example, My raspberry ganache. It is required.
Description (optional) — to remind you what you use it for.
Category — a dropdown with nine families: Ganache, Caramels, Crunchy, Jellies, Foams, Creams, Traditional pastes, Truffles, and Other (the one selected by default).

Add the parameters

Under Validation parameters, click Add parameter. The Add parameters window opens:

A search box (accent- and case-insensitive) and the list of parameters grouped by family: the nutrients from the ingredient records (Water, Sugars, Carbohydrates, Protein, Dietary fiber, Salt, fats, Total cocoa) and the physicochemical aw and pH.
Check several at once and click Add N parameters. The ones the type already has are shown as Already added.

Each parameter becomes a row with Min %, Max %, and Optimal (optional), in the parameter's unit, and a trash icon to remove it. If you add aw, the row reminds you that in your type this range does count when validating the aw you measure.

Save

Click Create type. Before saving, the form checks that there is a name and at least one parameter, that no minimum is above its maximum, and that the optimum sits inside the range. The type is added to your list, becomes available in the panel's selector, and is assigned to the recipe you have open.

Shortcut: this recipe's parameters

In the Add parameters window, the first group, In this recipe, lists the parameters that have a value in the open recipe, together with that value. When you add one, its range arrives pre-seeded around the current value (±20%, with a minimum margin) and the optimum set to that value. It's the fastest way to build a realistic type from a recipe you already have.

View a type

The eye (View) opens Formula type details: the parameter table with each Range and Optimal. From there you can go on to Edit if the type is yours, or Duplicate if it's built-in.

Edit a type

In Your formula types, click the card's pencil icon. Edit formula type opens pre-filled with the type's name, description, category, and all its parameters. Change what you need (ranges, parameters) and click Save changes: the changes persist and apply the next time you validate a recipe against that type.

Duplicate a predefined type

In the Built-in section, click Duplicate on any of the five. The creation form opens with the same category, parameters, and ranges as the built-in type as a starting point. The proposed name is Copy of followed by the built-in's catalog name, which comes in Spanish (for example, Copy of Caramelo Suave): rename it as you like. Click Create type and it's saved as a type of your own, which you can edit freely without touching the original.

Delete a type safely

Deleting a type is safe: the app checks first whether any of your recipes is using it.

Click the trash icon

On the type's card, click the trash icon. Delete formula type opens and, while the check runs, you'll see "Checking linked recipes…".

If no recipe uses it

You'll see the message "X" is not used in any recipe. This action cannot be undone. Click Delete and the type is gone.

If a recipe uses it

The notice changes to "X" is used in N recipes. and those recipes are listed below, each with its date and a View link that opens it in another tab. It explains the effect: "On delete, those recipes will be left without a formula type (you can reassign it)."

To enable the Delete button, you have to type DELETE in the "Type DELETE to confirm" field. Once you confirm, the type is deleted and the affected recipes are left without a formula type (no recipe is deleted and no composition is lost).

The double confirmation with DELETE only appears when there are linked recipes. It's a safeguard so you don't leave recipes without their formula type by accident.

Consistency with the Filling formulator

The five predefined types (Bonbon ganache, Soft caramel, Pâte de fruit, Creamy praline and Truffle) are exactly the same ones the Filling formulator generates, and they read the same ranges. That's why a recipe validated in this panel is measured against the same criteria as in the formulator. The score can differ slightly: here a measured pH counts, while in the formulator the pH is only estimated and doesn't score, and percentages are calculated on the mass of known composition instead of the recipe's weight. Your custom types extend that base with the templates you need, without altering the predefined ones.

Custom formula types