Free printable
A family cookbook template, and how to finish one
Four pages that make a collection of recipes into a book: a title page, a contents page, section dividers, and a recipe page with room for who it came from and when it gets made. Type into them or print them blank.
Title page
The first page of the book. Print one.
A collection of recipes from the
Family Kitchen
Collected by
Year
Table of contents
Fill it in last, once the page numbers stop moving.
Contents
Section divider
Print one per section. Breakfast, Sunday dinners, the desserts nobody else can make.
A line about this section, or who it belongs to
Recipe page, with the story
The page that does the real work. The story field is the part people reread in twenty years.
The story
Ingredients
Method
How to actually finish a family cookbook
Most family cookbooks die at the collecting stage. These five steps are the ones that get a book onto a shelf.
- Ask for one recipe, with a deadline. "Send me your recipes" gets nothing. "Send me the one thing you want your grandchildren to be able to make, by the end of the month" gets a reply.
- Photograph the original cards. When you visit, take a picture of the card in the handwriting it is written in. That image is worth more than the typed version, and it is the one that gets lost.
- Ask one follow-up question. "When did you make this?" gets you the sentence that turns a recipe into a story. Write it down while they are talking.
- Put everything on one layout. A book reads as a book when the pages match. Use the recipe page above for all of them, even the ones that came typed.
- Bind it before it is perfect. A finished book with eighteen recipes beats a perfect one with forty that nobody has seen. You can add pages later, which is the argument for a binder.
Recipe binder ideas
A three-ring binder is the format most of these end up in, for good reason: it takes new pages, it lies flat, and a damaged page can be replaced without reprinting the book.
Sleeve the pages you cook from
Clear page protectors turn a binder into a splash-proof book. Wipe the sleeve, not the recipe.
Use a two-inch binder, not a one
Every collection grows. A binder stuffed to the spine is one that stops getting added to.
Give each branch of the family a section
Organizing by who instead of by course makes a better gift, and it makes the gaps obvious.
Leave blank pages in each section
Space to add a recipe by hand is what keeps a binder alive rather than finished.
Put the index at the front, in pencil
Page numbers move. Pencil accepts that.
Print two copies while it is set up
One for your kitchen, one for whoever asks first. The second copy costs almost nothing at print time and is a project to recreate later.
Do the digital copy at the same time
You are already handling every recipe once. Photographing each card while it is in front of you costs a few extra seconds and gives you a second copy that cannot burn, flood, or go to one sibling in the will.
Trivet turns a photographed card into a recipe you can search by ingredient, scale for a holiday table, and cook from with the screen staying awake. Everything stays on your iPhone, and the whole collection exports to a file you keep, so the digital copy is as permanent as the printed one.
Print the book. Keep the copy.
Photograph each card once and get a searchable, scalable collection that outlives the paper.
Questions
- How do I make a family cookbook?
- Collect recipes from relatives, type or scan them into a consistent format, add a line about who each one came from, then print the pages and bind them. Four printable pages on this site cover the format: a title page, a contents page, section dividers, and a recipe page.
- How do I get relatives to actually send their recipes?
- Ask for one recipe, not their recipes, and give a deadline. Offer to take a photo of the card yourself when you visit. Most people never send a list, and almost everyone will hand over one card.
- What is the best way to bind a family cookbook?
- A three-ring binder if the collection will keep growing, spiral binding from a copy shop if it is finished and needs to lie flat on a counter, and a print-on-demand book if you are making copies for a family gathering.
- What should go on each recipe page besides the recipe?
- Who it came from, roughly when, and one or two sentences about when it gets made. In twenty years that note is the part people reread, and it is the part nobody thinks to write down.
More printables: recipe cards, box dividers, meal planner, grocery list.