I found this article online where it talks about recipes as being a set of formulas. Not every recipes that is written is based on formulas but the few that they talk about sounds awesome to me.

 

"The fundamental ingredients of cooking are: flour, water, butter, milk, eggs. Their proportions produce variations of bread, pasta, dumplings, crêpes, cookies or cakes. The difference between a crêpe and a cake is half the flour.

There are two ways to measure ingredients, by volume and by weight. Ratios are based on weight, regardless of units (ounces or grams).

The 1-2-3 cookie dough = 1 part sugar : 2 parts butter : 3 parts flour

This is the basic cookie dough and variations are infinite. There are 3 ways to change:
Flavour: add citrus zest, nuts, cinnamon, chocolate, peanut butter
Replace an ingredient: white sugar to brown, molasses, honey
Proportions: more butter will be more rich and chewy; more sugar will be crisper

Here are the Dough Ratios:

Bread = 5 parts flour : 3 parts water (+yeast, +salt)
Pasta Dough = 3 parts flour : 2 parts egg
Pie Dough = 3 parts flour : 2 parts fat : 1 part water
Biscuit = 3 parts flour : 1 part fat : 2 parts liquid
Pâte à Choux = 2 parts water : 1 part butter : 1 part flour : 2 parts egg"

 

For example: Pie Dough= 3 parts flour, 2 parts fat (lard), 1 part water

       3 cups flour, 2 cups fat, 1 part water or 3 bickets flour, 2 buckets fat, 1 bucket water

Simple keep all of the measuring units the same and keep the ratio amount the same