HOW TO KEEP A RECIPE JOURNAL

Since I was a kid I was constantly standing in the kitchen next to my grandmother, who took care of us after my mom died. My grandma would always teach me how to cook and gave me advice and directions. So I started cooking at a fairly young age but it took me maaaany years to come to the point where I could say I really know how to cook.

My experiment cooking during my teenage years was sometimes horrible but somehow it was always edible and no one died – so that’s a plus. But I didn’t become an excellent cook until I was well in my twenties.

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But I had another problem. I absolutely LOVE cakes. And cookies. And pie. And tarts. And muffins. (Hence the need for a weight loss journal :)) But I was a lost cause. I was a disaster with baking. The more I tried the more I failed. I simply couldn’t bake. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out what was my problem – but I didn’t give up.

Then, a few years back, as I was nearing my thirties, everything changed. Suddenly, every recipe I tried turned out not good but AMAZING! My husband often jokes that I just needed a good motivation – we met around that time 🙂 The most complicated or the simplest recipe I tried – it all turned out fabulous.

So I decided it’s time to make my own recipe journal. I started simple with just a basic, spiral notebook where I wrote down recipes I got from my family or friends and the ones I found online. I tried to write everything as neatly as possible so as not to confuse myself with something I don’t understand. (Once I forgot to put flour on the ingredients list – you can imagine my surprise when I started putting everything together)

On the recipe page, I would write the date when I first tried the recipe and a few notes after trying it out. Notes would be something in the line of: “use less/more sugar”, “omit the rum”, “add finely chopped walnuts on top” or something similar. These notes were really helpful next time I baked something.

Oh, and I found this amazing guy who had recipes for everything I was looking for and each recipe I tried turned out AMAZING (his site is in Croatian but has directions in English on his video recipes). He really helped me with my baking skills.

But as I am a journaling type, I was hungry for a better recipe book, so I started making a new one, in which I included pictures of the whole baking process and it simply looks better and more beautiful. I started working on it recently, so it doesn’t have all of my recipes yet and as I am currently dieting it’s hard to bake something often to include in my journal.

I am planning trying a new recipe (or some of the recipes I already have) each week, so I’ll share with you my process. And in the next weeks, I’ll share recipes for my most favorite desserts and snacks.

What is your favorite recipe? Share with me in the comments – I’d love to try it out!