Chefs, hobbyists, and foodies have one thing in common, the need to share their love for food. Whether you want to make a cookbook, share a reci[e online, or just share a recipe with a friend, documenting the recipe can be tricky.
When it comes to writing your cooking recipes, you want to make sure that your reader has a high chance of succeeding. Use these writing tips to make the recipes simple to write and execute. Enjoy!
Step By Step Documenting
Keep a pad of large, unlined paper in the kitchen to jot down notes about how you make a recipe you’re about to publish. Your notes will serve as the first draft of the final written recipe. Make these notes in the order in which the measures in the recipe are performed.
This first draft is the most realistic representation of how you go about making an initial recipe that you can have. As you experiment, cross out and rewrite things, and keep in mind that the paper catches stray ingredients and the ink smears under wet hands.
These notes are an unstructured archive of actual kitchen activity. They finally come to provide all of the essential information for others to successfully follow the recipe.
Pay Attention to the Smallest Details and Document Them
A reader who didn’t grow up in a successful cook’s kitchen and wants to make the delectable recipe you promise won’t be helped by a provincial measurement system. Record accurate measurements as the recipe come together, starting with the initial notes.
Based on whether the food is entire, coarsely sliced, finely diced, raw, fried, or liquefied, different types of the same food occupy different volumes. When a carrot is sliced into 1/2-inch rounds, it takes up less space than when it is cut into 1-inch rounds. To put it another way, be precise on the type of food to be weighed. As you cook your initial recipe, make these notes on the working kitchen draft once more.
Use Common Kitchen Vocabulary
There are several distinctions between chopping and mincing, grilling and frying, and a slew of other related phrases. For the cook who wishes to execute the recipe, choosing one word over the other may mean the difference between success and failure.
Fortunately, there are many excellent cooking word dictionaries available on the Internet. The Good Housekeeping Dictionary of Cooking Words is limited to the more popular terms, so it’s a good place to start before diving into encyclopedias like the Epicurious Food Dictionary.
Try Writing Using a Template
Since you don’t have to make style or organization choices when you write, using a blueprint speeds up the recipe writing process. If you want to make a cookbook, using a template will help you keep your writing and formatting consistent for all of your recipes. You can either make your own or use one created by someone else, depending on your word processing skills.
Turn Your Draft Notes into a Recipe
The comments you make when recording the cooking process are not the same as the arrangement of a completed recipe. While the first draft is a document of the artistic process, the way it is organized is detrimental to making a recipe that others can adopt. Ingredients, process, and tools all have their parts in the final formula.
Cooks demand that recipes are written in a certain order; don’t let them down. Begin with the simplest elements, which are lists of equipment and ingredients. Please use the full name of the measurement and be careful with the coding.
A Good Intro Counts
After you’ve revised your draft notes, or much later, is a fine time to compose an introduction. Many of the fragments of the recipe will have come together by then, and you will have new ideas about what you want to say to your readers about it.
Take Photos, You’ll Need Them Here
Food photography is undeniably an art and a specialty, so if you don’t have access to a professional photographer, don’t be afraid to include your images or sketches of products, tools, and the finished meal. Your audience will be grateful for your efforts.
Those quality photographs and illustrations would appear as if by magic when a big publisher wishes to sign a contract with you for a book of your recipes.
How To Serve the Food
This is your chance to suggest foods that can help the reader supplement your meal with nutritional benefits and other benefits. Consider how you’d like to serve this meal at your dinner. What foods and drinks complement the flavor of your dish? Your readers will enjoy your advice once again.
Spell Check Your Recipe
A spell checker will take of the little human errors we make with grammar, use one to brush off some misplaced/mispronounced grammar.
Request for a Review from Someone Else
You’ll be oblivious to the flaws in the recipe by the time you’ve written it, spellchecked it, and re-read it too many times. Get a new perspective from eyes that haven’t been worn out by the journey you’ve just gone through. These new eyes may not only spot mistakes that you may have overlooked, but they will also provide useful tips that will help you improve your written recipe.
Gaining the Attention of Possible Financiers(Bonus Point)
There is a chance that you’d like to earn some cash from your hobby, so try using and recommending products in your recipe, For instance, you could buy some custom spout pouches, and recommend them for packing seasonings or some other foodstuff.
In the case that you will publish this in a blog, try partnering with the manufacturers of these products to earn some commission on their sales. Be creative with this one.
Conclusion
Writing a recipe requires the same level of precision as writing a series of instructions for assembling a structure or using a piece of machinery. It’s what’s known as “How To” writing, which is a specific, structured style of writing. You can write recipes that anyone would pursue with success if you follow these 10 recipe-documenting tips.