How do you make a family recipe book?

Collect one recipe from each person rather than trying to write the whole thing yourself, keep their words as they wrote them, and print it as a real book so it gets used. The collecting is the part that defeats most people, and a shared link removes it.

Can everyone in the family get a copy?

Yes. Copies are much cheaper after the first one, since the design work is already done.

What if someone sends a recipe with no measurements?

That is most of them. You can tidy anything up before printing, and quite often the vague version in their own words is the one worth keeping.

Just because

A family cookbook, without the chasing

Every family means to write down the recipes. The reason it never happens is not the cooking, it is the admin.

Start a family cookbook

Free to make and free to collect. You pay only if you print it.

How it works

One link goes to the family. Each person adds a recipe and says who taught it to them. Nobody needs an account, and a photograph of a handwritten card is a perfectly good way to send one.

You edit the whole thing, read it as a PDF, and it comes back as an A4 hardback. Order more than one and everybody gets a copy.

Why it usually fails, and what fixes it

The normal version of this project is one person collecting recipes by text message for two years. It fails because the collecting is boring and the typing up is worse.

Here everyone does their own page, the reminders chase on your behalf, and you only get involved when the recipes are in.

When to start

Whenever, but there is a good argument for doing it while the oldest generation can still tell you how they make it. That is the part that does not wait.

Christmas is a natural deadline if you want one, because the finished book is also a present for everyone who contributed.

Who to ask

Everyone, including the in-laws and the cousins nobody has seen since a funeral. A family cookbook is a rare excuse to contact people you like but do not ring.

Ask children too. Their pages are the ones people go back to.

What contributors are asked

Every contributor gets a prompt with their recipe, so nobody faces an empty box:

Who taught you this one?
When do you make it?
What does it remind you of?

What arrives

An A4 hardback book on 170gsm uncoated paper, printed and bound in the UK, with one recipe per page and space under each for a handwritten note. You read the whole thing as a PDF before anything is printed.

A recipe page from an A Moose Boosh cookbook, with the lower half of the page left blank for a handwritten note — One recipe per page, and the space underneath is left for whoever sent it.

Questions

How do you make a family recipe book?: Collect one recipe from each person rather than trying to write the whole thing yourself, keep their words as they wrote them, and print it as a real book so it gets used. The collecting is the part that defeats most people, and a shared link removes it.
Can everyone in the family get a copy?: Yes. Copies are much cheaper after the first one, since the design work is already done.
What if someone sends a recipe with no measurements?: That is most of them. You can tidy anything up before printing, and quite often the vague version in their own words is the one worth keeping.

The chasing is the part we take off you.

Three questions and you have a link to send. Free until you print it.

Start a family cookbook