Organizing Favorite Recipes in a Recipe Book

When my kids were little, I was a terrible cook. When I got married, I could make chocolate chip cookies, biscuits, and banana nut bread—and that was it. I eventually learned how to fry chicken and make a few basic meals, but if I announced I was “trying a new recipe,” my family knew there was a good chance we’d be ordering pizza that night.

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Organizing Favorite Recipes in a Recipe Book

Over the past few years, I’ve worked really hard to teach myself how to cook and bake. Now, kitchen disasters are rare. My chocolate chip cookies are pretty much legendary. I made homemade cinnamon rolls for Christmas instead of buying a refrigerated Pillsbury package. I can whip up no-bake chocolate cookies without thinking twice. I’ve made my own pumpkin roll with cream cheese icing and even have a favorite fudge recipe.

The internet is a great place to find tried-and-true recipes—but here’s a tip: I don’t print recipes from AI. Ingredients are too expensive to waste on something a machine thinks might work. I want recipes from real humans who’ve been baking for years and have tested the measurements. Give me a blog written by someone who’s burned a batch or two and learned from it.

My problem right now is organization. My recipes are stacked on shelves, stuffed into cookbooks, or saved on my phone—and that’s no way to keep them. For Christmas, my husband bought me a new recipe book, and my daughter and I have started copying all our favorites into it.

Tips for writing down recipes:

• List all the ingredients, then double-check that you copied them correctly.
• Add notes you’ve learned over time. Does the recipe need a certain kind of butter? Is there a flour that works best? Any tricks that make it foolproof?

• Write the history of the recipe. I love knowing that the corn pudding I make every Thanksgiving came from my grandma—but will my kids remember that someday? Will they know the bran muffins came from Grandmother O?
• Handwrite what you can, but don’t be afraid to tape in a printed recipe if it’s too detailed. Just make sure it doesn’t overlap the margins and get stuck.

• Keep a table of contents. Because no one wants to spend ten minutes searching past the Japanese curry recipe when it’s time to make beef stroganoff.

I love this recipe book because there’s plenty of space for notes, memories, and adjustments—not just ingredients and directions.

Do you have a favorite recipe book?

My favorite recipes from 2025:

• Pumpkin roll
• Easy Cinnamon Rolls (from scratch)
• Bran muffins
• Homemade brownie mix
• Make-ahead muffins
• Easy pancake/waffle mix
• Homemade Japanese curry

If your favorite recipes are scattered on scraps of paper, saved on your phone, or tucked into old cookbooks, this is your sign to start gathering them in one place. Grab a recipe book today and start saving the meals, memories, and notes your family will thank you for later.