March 13, 2015 - 8:39pm
How do you save your recipes?
I've got several binders full of loose papers that include my mother's recipes for various things, plus more things I've copied down.
I got a bit smarter and bought a spiral notebook, for notes while I'm trying new recipes - but I find myself flipping back through many pages to redo a popular recipe, over and over. i.e. I'm recording process but not method.
I thought about copying "known good" recipes back into a single book. I also looked at some of the software out there, and I'm leery of anything that takes my recipes and doesn't give them back the same way.
So: what do you do to keep track of your recipes?
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If I do not have the cookbook, I will copy interesting recipes I find online. I save them, edit them following a standard format, and store them in a recipes folder on my hard drive. The folder has subfolders for drinks, breads, salads, soups, mains, etc. Some of those subfolders have subfolders!
If I'm going to make the recipe, I print it out and put it in a binder stored on the kitchen counter (also with page separators to create separate sections). I police the binder. If I don't like the recipe, or do not make it often, I tear out the printed page. I don't cull my recipe files all that often, as the files take up little space on the hard drive.
If I decide the recipe needs to be tweaked, I modify the file on the computer and print it out again.
This may seem like a lot of work, particularly if you're starting with binders full of recipes. But once you get over the initial hurdles, it becomes quite easy to keep your recipe files organized and your kitchen binder slim and useful.
Really. But it's okay.
in Word for my daughter and all of my bread posts are in Word and in the book too. A great way to easily find stuff. Will look for corned beef and cabbage and Ballymaloe SD Brown Bread today with St Paddy's Day so near.
Works well for me.
so when I find something I like, I bookmark it into a folder in my browser for recipes that I want to try before permanently saving them. This bookmark folder also contains links to other informative articles on the internet. I review it periodically and delete those I no longer need.
After trying a recipe and deciding I want to use it again, I then copy it into Word to keep it electronically. I print it out and keep it in a binder in the kitchen inside a sheet protector so that when I use it for baking/cooking it can be wiped clean and returned to the binder. Any recipes I don't use regularly or decide i don't really like get trashed. Having them in Word also allows me to tweak and save them
I might be very oldfashioned but I still write down my recipes in nice books.
I do that for my children and maybe they want to carry on and add to the book/s and pass it on to their children.
I kind of like going through the book's and look for recipe's but most I know by heard by now.
Still use my PC on which I have a main folder * Recipes * with sub folder for bread , cakes, soups, main, dessert.... I always find everythin quickly.
But as I said, I am oldfashioned and I like the Idea of book/s to pass on when I am gone, it is a bit of mum, it has my Ideas and my handwriting...
I don't know if my kids will bake as avidly as I do, but I want to make sure they will be able to find out what I did. It's taken me some years to figure out my mother's old recipes, cause she only wrote down what she didn't cook often.
on my computer for new recipes, this makes it easy to store, easy to search for, and most importantly for me I set up the cells with the quantities to scale so if I change the first value, all the rest automatically recalculate. this lets me double, triple or halve or quarter the recipe effortlessly.
One recipe is on each tab and at the bottom I place notes and tips for myself. If its a tricky recipe than I might have extra votes for them to understand why an unusual step or technique works better, so they wont skip it or take a shortcut.
My old recipes are still in several binders (which the pages are decaying from age or excess handling) so when I cook from the binder I type it into my spreadsheet and recycle the old recipe.
I have two backup systems so there are always three copies of my spreadsheet file (unlike the one copy in the binder).
And finally, I can easily copy recipes to email them to my family and friends.
When I'm actually making/baking loaves I like to have a paper copy on the counter. Consequently, of the breads and other things I bake frequently, are "living" documents replete with wrinkles, dried levain incompletely wiped away, translucent oil drips, ingredient quantities x'ed out topped by modifications, and penciled notes in the blank areas.
However, my digital records are reasonably complete and accessible. When I first was bitten by the sourdough virus--carrying a disease akin to OCD--I wrote a spreadsheet program to primarily convert favorite conventional commercial yeast recipes to sourdough recipes. Over the past five years the spread sheet has become my "go-to" recording of any recipe I expect to bake more than once. The spread sheet does the Baker's Math for me. Each time I tweak a formula I modify the previous spread sheet and save it as "Basic file name + Variation (sequentially numbered). For example, I've a favorite sourdough formula I first baked on New Year's day 2010. I filed it's spread sheet as "010110 SD". Last week, after my wife praised the crust and crumb of a 010110 SD_Var6" I'd mixed incorrectly and raised the hydration significantly, I tweaked Var. 6 again this week with my calculated guess of my mistake. Again, she liked it. I sat down at the computer, and recorded "010110 SD_Var7" in spreadsheet form.
I currently have about a hundred spreadsheet records for sourdoughs, baguettes, Challah, Sandwich Rye, 100% Rye, and a few miscellaneous breads I recorded in spreadsheet form, but have only baked once.
This collective is so important to me it's saved daily to an external hard-drive.
The other form of record I keep is my TFL blog. In many ways it's an even more important record of my journey to become a better amateur baker. Among my frequent ramblings are the details of the discipline I've had to develop to achieve consistency bake-to-bake. This was/is my primary goal. While baking is presently one of my most enjoyable hobbies, it is more than that. We haven't bought a loaf of commercially-made bread in more than a dozen years.
Happy Baking,
David G
P.S. What do you mean by "I'm recording process, but not method"? I don't understand. Thanks.
D.
I'm recording the process I go through to get the recipe done, but not the actual finished recipe. So I end up repeating the process I went through previously to get the same result.
I'm thinking a final version of the recipes, recorded separately, would help me the most. Like what you're describing.
I use my my spreed sheet program to record ingredients, ratios (Baker's Percentages), and a summary of the processes (steps: mixing, autolyse, manipulation, fermenting, etc.) baking time/temperature. And especially any "non-typical" processes (if any) I plan to use/or use spontaneously during an actual bake.
I use my TFL blog, occasionally, to record my attitude, reasoning, intent, goal and lessons learned. They are as much reminders for me as they are for sharing with other TFL'ers.
Here's a couple of links to examples of what I occasionally share. I'm sure they are boring to most, but a few other TFL folk add their thoughts, getting a good exchange of ideas going. About twice a year I scan back through my blog to remind myself of my bread baking journey, and especially important lessons learned along the way--both little ones (like don't forget the salt.) and big ones (like Have Fun!).
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/38306/compilation-lessons-learned-starter-maintenance-and-manipulation
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/24931/baguettes-and-kiss-principle
David G
I like what you are doing, and it sounds like a good approach. I'm working on repeatability and quantity - I'd like to be able to create consistent quality without fussing about it too much, as the fun part for me isn't the baking (though I like it) but being able to give it to others. Higher quantity == more fun, and the better I document it the easier it is to repeat.
In any case, the spreadsheet you are using - is it an Excel document that you've set up specifically for this or something else? If it's redistributable, can you share it?
regarding the spreadsheet.
David G.
I use BreadStorm software on the iMac and on an iPad, this allows me to easily put my ideas together in a new formula or to enter formulas out of baking books or the web. It's a good way to scrutinise& tweak found "recipes" before commiting to use them. Adjusting the dough size is a breeze. The option to share formulas in an interactive format is also a bonus.
cheers
I type most of the recipes I want to use and save it either in word format or .pdf format and save them to my hard drives. I categorize them into folders so it's easy to find. I also keep the recipes I use most on dropbox so I can have access to my tablets and it's easy to read the info from my tablets. Hope this helps.
I keep a "Artist's Journal" style bound book, where I jot down all "home life" related things as they happen. I keep the first few pages blank, and any Recipe that I find works well, I write what it is, and the page number in the front, where it's kept like an index. eg:
You just keep that up until you've filled the book, Once that is done you take the ones you keep going back to, and copy them to page 3 or so of the new notebook. Usually there won't be many left to re-copy over each time, as you will have edited your process or recipe.