When viewing a recipe in JEI that requires intermediate items (e.g., crafting a Piston when you only have Logs, Cobblestone, Redstone, and Iron Ore/Ingots), standard JEI can only craft the final recipe if all immediate sub-components already exist in your inventory.
Cascade solves this by recursively analyzing recipes, checking available raw materials, auto-crafting intermediate ingredients in topological order, and finally assembling the target item.
so basically, if you have 1 oak log in your inventory and press the c button while being on the crafting table recipe, it will craft the 4 planks you need for it!
also works in an ae2 terminal! (doesnt work in the 2 by 2 grid for balance purposes)