Written Recipe Format - What's your preferred method?

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Andy M.

Certified Pretend Chef
Joined
Sep 1, 2004
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WRITTEN RECIPE FORMAT

Recipes I've cooked and want to keep get typed up and put into my three-ring cookbook binder.

I have a standard format I use to promote consistency in appearance and understanding.

Here's what I do:

• I use 24-pound paper, heavier than the standard 20-pound printer paper.
• Standard font is Arial 12-point with bolding and italics as needed
• Footnotes are in Arial 8-point in Month Year format. I list dates created and revised.
• Titles are centered in BOLDED LARGE AND SMALL CAPS.
• Attribution is in Italics.
• All units of measure abbreviations are standardized to a prepared list.
• Ingredients lists are in two columns listed first after the title in the order used
• Ingredients in separate steps are separated by an underline
• I write instructions in complete sentences rather than in recipe speak.
• I record the amount of time need to make the recipe from start to finish.
• I keep these recipes in a binder with subject dividers for Meats, Poultry, etc.
• I do not use plastic sheet protectors. Reprinting is cheaper and takes less space



There's probably more but you get the idea. You're probably thinking I'm way too Anal Retentive for your liking but that's just me.

What do you do for your recipes?


From: Andy M.
 
That sounds like perfection to me Andy, and there's sure nothing wrong with that.

Hand written recipe collections are sure a thing of the past, and in some ways that's too bad. My Mom has been gone since I was a young woman, and when I come across one of her recipe cards she comes back to me with her writing. My kids will have mine in my hand before I bought a computer and that's all. Kinda sad.
 
WRITTEN RECIPE FORMAT

Recipes I've cooked and want to keep get typed up and put into my three-ring cookbook binder.

I have a standard format I use to promote consistency in appearance and understanding.


What do you do for your recipes?


From: Andy M.

I do something similar and in the past couple of years have been putting together a family favorites book. I had to standardize the recipe format and after some failed attempts came up with these (here's a left and right version:

DC_recipeleft.jpg

DC_recipe card.jpg

It's 8 x 8 on card stick and the ingredient list is grouped by assembly steps. There is a place for notes at the bottom, a picture and I try like heck to fit it on one page so that no page turns are needed.

:chef:
 
I'm a complete failure at this! :ermm::ohmy::LOL:

I have tried several formats to organize my "collection" into three different little cookbooks and a sort of diary of things to cook and eat in season.

I agree with Kayelle about the old handwritten recipes, newspaper clippings and the old cookbooks with notes in the margins. I always know I have found a great recipe when I'm looking through an old cookbook and the page in front of me is just covered with splatters, stains and little notes. When I make those recipes I feel a connection with the previous cooks. I always try to pencil in a note or tip of my own for the next person to discover. :angel:
 
I record recipes in Microsoft OneNote with picture then print out and keep in an accordion folder. I am planning on printing on card stock and putting in a cookbook binder when I can.

img_1467229_0_a294819808aa3ffc852382321c4ada24.jpg
 
Having lost all my recipes once to a computer that refused mouth-to-mouth CPR, I said never again. Next computer, I started printing ea recipe as I entered them in. My ring binder was not kept in the best/ usable order. Ugh.

In recent years I am using a free cloud based recipe organizer that seems to work for me, or at least I have learned to make a few adjustments with it, to the extent it allows. Pepperplate (dot com).
It allows one picture, and has a place for notes at the bottom. It's easy to copy/ paste ingredients and instrux, cooking/ prep times, recipe source, and a few other bells and whistles in formatted places. It's drawbacks are, it saves individual recipes in the order one enters them, or you can place the whole lot in alphabetical order. The good news is the user gets to create recipe categories, much like a cookbook and from there it is easier to locate the recipe you want. It's search box works too by title or a main ingredient.

I got more to say about this,but I gotta go right now. Bye.
 
Here's an image of my format. Sorry, no photos.
 

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I use The Recipe Box app. It's on all the tablets, phones, and the desktop, so the chances of losing recipes is very slight.

I can copy and paste and stick them on there. I also have handwritten recipes from Gramma and friends that are in a little wooden recipe box in my cupboard.
 
I'm a complete failure at this! :ermm::ohmy::LOL:

I have tried several formats to organize my "collection" into three different little cookbooks and a sort of diary of things to cook and eat in season.

I agree with Kayelle about the old handwritten recipes, newspaper clippings and the old cookbooks with notes in the margins. I always know I have found a great recipe when I'm looking through an old cookbook and the page in front of me is just covered with splatters, stains and little notes. When I make those recipes I feel a connection with the previous cooks. I always try to pencil in a note or tip of my own for the next person to discover. :angel:

Bea, I've posted this site a couple of times but you may have missed it.
Recipe nostalgia at it's best!!


RecipeCurio.comVintage Recipes | RecipeCurio.com
 
I keep mine in Living Cookbook and I back up the database to an external HD every time I add a new recipe. Trying to keep a printed binder in any kind of order is virtually impossible with 2 of us accessing and adding to it. Especially when one of us is uninterested in alphabetizing. :wacko:
 
We keep most of them in electronic format, word pad, Ariel font (cause I like that one and do most of the saving). I do back-ups every couple of weeks on an independent hard drive so don't have to worry about losing things. I have been really bad about not saving things that I've bookmarked on my tablet or phone and have lost a few when one or the other failed, though I've usually remembered enough of the recipe to find it again, and have been trying to make sure I copy and paste to the computer that I back up regularly lately, as I had a tablet that I had for several years that just died on me not too long ago, no saving that one. As far as the cookbooks we own, you can tell which ones get made regularly, stains and water/liquid marks as mentioned before. If I rewrite and post the recipe somewhere (like here), I'll save them to the computer that gets backed up. We do have notebooks that have recipes cut-off from old magazines or typed out from old magazines like Bon Appetit that we keep.
 
I guess my recipe format looks much like Andy's and everyone's, except I keep ingredients in one column. If the original didn't, I make sure to separate major parts, like marinade, main components, finishing sauce or cake ingreds from the frosting etc. And the same goes for the prep instructions too.

The handiest thing I find is because I am back and forth a lot between home and Dx's, it is easy to access a recipe wherever.

I keep my old 3 x 5 card file on the recipe book shelf. It has a few oldies/ goodies I still like to use.
 
I use Living Cookbook and print a copy. I keep printouts in several 3-ring binders; I have too many recipes for just one ;) You can create different cookbooks and sections within cookbooks. You can also put in headers and separate the ingredient list by component, if you want. It comes with a database of ingredients and associated nutritional information, which you can update every year - the company provides a file you can download and import when the FDA updates nutritional data.

It has a capture feature, so you can copy and paste from a web page and easily put it in the standard format, which is customizable for each cookbook. It also has a scale feature - you can take a recipe that serves four and scale it to serve 20 and it will do the calculations and create a new recipe. This has been great for making the recipes we use for DH's annual capstone event for 25-30 teachers.

I'm attaching a copy of the format I use (it's 8.5x11; I cropped it to make it easier to see).

For people who back up to an external hard drive: They are magnetic media and can crash just like internal hard drives. I learned that the hard way. Now, I use an online backup service, which backs up automagically in the background every time a file changes (you can select which files and folders to back up). That came in handy when my laptop died last year.
 

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I'm not the most organized person when it comes to formatting and filing recipes :wacko:, but this is a project I've been working on for quite some time and should give it attention more often. It's for my daughters.

My mom had this old tin recipe file box that I just love - this thing must be close to 50 years old. It's filled with recipes from my mom, both grandmas, and an aunt or two. I've been re-typing the recipes, adding my notes, the original handwritten (or typed from an old typewriter) recipe cards, and my best guess as to the dates. Some recipes are handed down, some are clipped from a magazine and I'm lucky to have some of the original yellowed magazine clippings.

Here's her file box: :wub:
003.jpg

I've been putting them in a binder in sheet protectors, so that I can slip in the original handwritten version as well. Kind of a keepsake thing. Here's a random sample:
 

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Sorry the second pic was so blurry. :ermm::LOL:
As far as other newer recipes, I have quite a few stored in computer files and am working on getting them into the binder as well, at some point. Pretty much the same simple format as above.
 
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Lately I have been entering all my recipes into Google Drive. That way I can access them from anywhere on any device. I use Comic Sans Ms font at 20 for the title and 14 for the recipe.

The recipes I use frequently, I print and put into document protectors that go into a 3 ring binder that sits on the bar.

I do enjoy seeing my mom's handwritten recipes with all the splatters and penciled in notes, but if I handwrote mine, no one would be able to read them.
 
I use Living Cookbook and print a copy. I keep printouts in several 3-ring binders; I have too many recipes for just one ;) You can create different cookbooks and sections within cookbooks. You can also put in headers and separate the ingredient list by component, if you want. It comes with a database of ingredients and associated nutritional information, which you can update every year - the company provides a file you can download and import when the FDA updates nutritional data.

It has a capture feature, so you can copy and paste from a web page and easily put it in the standard format, which is customizable for each cookbook. It also has a scale feature - you can take a recipe that serves four and scale it to serve 20 and it will do the calculations and create a new recipe. This has been great for making the recipes we use for DH's annual capstone event for 25-30 teachers.

I'm attaching a copy of the format I use (it's 8.5x11; I cropped it to make it easier to see).

For people who back up to an external hard drive: They are magnetic media and can crash just like internal hard drives. I learned that the hard way. Now, I use an online backup service, which backs up automagically in the background every time a file changes (you can select which files and folders to back up). That came in handy when my laptop died last year.

I have 2 external hard drives, plus at least a half dozen thumb drives, several SD cards for my camera. I could, if I wished, make 7 or 8 backups, but I feel that having it on my computer and on 2 external drives (I use the second external to back up the first one, so everything in my primary backup is backed up again. Three copies should be enough to ensure that I will have the opportunity to recover even in the unlikely event that two should fail at the same time.
 
Yes, three copies should be enough. Most people don't do that, though. The main thing I like about online backup is that I don't have to do anything or think about it. It's just done.

Forgot to mention, I also use Dropbox on my phone, tablet and laptop. All photos sync to my laptop, which is then backed up to the online service.
 
If you are backing up to external drives, I would suggest using a rotating set of drives. If you get hit by ransomware you will have a clean backup. A backup of corrupt files won't do you much good.

I have a set of three external drives that I rotate to copy frequently modified folders. I make a full data backup periodically, and also have several sets of irreplaceable photos on DVDs (they are really cheap). I have the data partition structured in a way that makes it easy for me do this.

Even if you use online backup I would suggest a periodic local backup of important files, just in case.
 
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