Recipe Book Ideas Archives - Newlywords Blog

Comparing Employee Recipe Book Websites: Finding the Best Fit for Your Workplace

In today’s corporate landscape, fostering a sense of community and team bonding is essential. One way to achieve this—even in remote work environments—is through the creation of employee recipe books or cookbooks. These delightful (and tasty) collaborations not only bring colleagues closer and celebrate workplace diversity but also serve as a cherished keepsake.

To help you decide which platform suits your workplace’s unique needs, we’ll compare five popular websites: Create My Cookbook, Heritage Cookbook, Newlywords, Family Cookbook Project, and Recipe Card Cookbook. Each platform has its strengths, making it best for different circumstances. Let’s find the one that’s right for you.

Comparison Table:

What is an Employee Recipe Book?

As we shift from face-to-face office interaction to a more remote environment, finding ways to develop relationships, build team cohesion, and simply bond is becoming more challenging. One way organizations have tackled this obstacle is through fun, collaborative projects such as creating a recipe book.

Employee recipe books allow staff members to contribute their favorite recipes, as well as the stories behind their significance. This not only allows team members to know each other better, but it also celebrates the diversity of your team. Depending on the platform you use, creating an employee recipe book can be an incredibly bonding and collaborative experience as your team works together to gather photos, stories, and recipes to make a cookbook they’ll refer to again and again.

Create My Cookbook:A Recipe Book Enthusiast’s Dream

Create My Cookbook shines in the “Easy to Collect Recipes” category, earning a 9. Its intuitive interface simplifies the process of gathering recipes from employees, and robust features even help you save time by typing in recipes for you. Whether focusing on creating a space to share diverse recipes or simply developing a fun workplace keepsake, Create My Cookbook is a great choice.

When it comes to design options, Create My Cookbook excels, offering a vast array of templates, customization features, and design tools, earning it a perfect 10 in that category. The book quality is commendable, providing a professional touch to your cookbook.

However, pricing may not be ideal for all workplaces, although price varies widely based on the length of your cookbook, binding, and how many copies your organization needs. Customer reviews are generally positive, highlighting the platform’s reliability and design capabilities. Create My Cookbook is a top choice for those who value creative freedom and are willing to invest a bit more time in their employee recipe books.

Heritage Cookbook:A Classic Choice

Heritage Cookbook may not lead in any specific category, but it offers a well-rounded recipe book experience. It scores a 7 in “Made for the Workplace,” indicating that it caters to the corporate setting only reasonably well. Collecting recipes is straightforward, and employee contributions are also accommodated with relative ease through the platform’s system.

In terms of design, Heritage Cookbook provides classic templates and customization options but doesn’t stand out significantly from other platforms. The book quality, however, shines, with a high-quality finish and paper. Even with the high-quality printing, the pricing is reasonable, making it accessible to a wide range of workplaces. According to reviews, customers appreciate the platform’s simplicity and affordability, making Heritage Cookbook a solid choice for organizations seeking a classic and budget-friendly solution.

Newlywords: – For the Modern Workplace:

Newlywords takes the lead with a stellar score for being made for the workplace. It understands the corporate environment’s unique needs and offers an ideal platform for creating employee recipe books. Its sleek and user-friendly interface ensures easy recipe collection and employee contributions.

One unique feature is the recipe collection page, a customizable questionnaire that is sent to all contributors. Prompt employees with fun questions, invite them to share pictures and memes, and ask for the stories behind the recipes they share. This feature alone creates a truly collaborative experience for your employee recipe book.

In terms of design, Newlywords offers a wide range of customization options, allowing your cookbook to reflect your company’s brand identity, culture, and aesthetic preferences. The book quality is impressive, with excellent paper and printing, earning it a 9 in that category. Pricing is competitive, with options for various budgets. Lastly, customers applaud its reliability and innovation.

Overall, Newlywords is the go-to choice for modern workplaces aiming to create memorable and lasting employee recipe books.

Family Cookbook Project:Bringing Families Closer

While Family Cookbook Project focuses on preserving family recipes, the overall goal of fostering a sense of togetherness also makes it a great option for the workplace. Collecting recipes is a breeze with its intuitive platform, and with its higher-level membership pricing, it allows for unlimited employee (or family) contributions.

Design options, while not as extensive as some competitors, are still impressive. The book quality is reliable but doesn’t stand out from other platforms. Limited binding and paper choice, as well as an emphasis on printing your own PDF cookbook, make it less than ideal for large bulk printing.

Customer reviews highlight the platform’s user-friendliness and community-building features, with a score of 7.9. Family Cookbook Project is an excellent choice for smaller workplaces that want to emphasize a sense of family among their employees.

Recipe Card Cookbook:Budget-Friendly Option

Much like its name implies, Recipe Card Cookbook provides a way to compile images of your old recipe cards into a single printed cookbook. With a pricing score of 9, it is certainly a budget-friendly option, which is reflected in the final product. Collecting recipes is straightforward, and it can meet corporate needs, but the end result is a compilation of recipe card images versus a professional-looking cookbook collab.

Design options on Recipe Card Cookbook are limited compared to most competitors. The design system is a pared-down version of Family Cookbook Project. While you can still type out each recipe and upload your own photos, the idea behind Recipe Card Cookbook is to quickly and easily collect your recipe cards into a simple book.

The printed book quality is decent, and customers appreciate its affordability, with a score of. Recipe Card Cookbook is an ideal choice for small businesses or startups with budget and time constraints.

The Best Employee Recipe Book Platform for Your Company

In the world of collaborative cookbook websites, there is no one-size-fits-all solution for your employee recipe book project. Each platform excels in different areas—design, print quality, collaboration tools, and pricing—making them suitable for various workplace needs. Newlywords stands out as the best choice for modern workplaces, with a focus on workplace dynamics and collaboration features that accommodate organizations of all shapes and sizes.

Not only is the final product a high-quality keepsake that your employees will feel proud of creating, but the platform’s tools make the process of collaboration fun, practical, and easy. Create My Cookbook caters to design enthusiasts willing to invest time and creative energy into customization. Heritage Cookbook offers a classic and budget-friendly option, while Family Cookbook Project emphasizes togetherness and family recipes. Recipe Card Cookbook is the go-to choice for organizations on a tight budget and with little time to invest in creative design

Before making your decision, carefully evaluate your workplace goals, budget, and design preferences to select the platform that aligns best with your needs. Whichever you choose, creating an employee recipe book will undoubtedly enhance team cohesion, celebrate diversity,leave a lasting, flavorful impression.

How to Create a Collaborative Family Recipe Book In 7 Steps

Looking for a guide to help you craft a collaborative family recipe book that can be passed down to future generations? Look no further!

Famous American chef, James Beard, said “Food is our common ground, a universal experience.” Especially in families, recipes and food are one of the main ways to connect and pass down a tradition through the generations. In the past, sharing our favorite dishes meant coming together in the kitchen to cook, swap recipes, and gather around the table.

While being together in one place is not always an option, collaborative recipe books allow us to still share food, recipes, and community — even from afar. Here are our best tips for creating a collaborative recipe book with a group of family, whether it’s genetic or chosen family and community!

What is a Collaborative Family Recipe Cookbook?

A group of people in a kitchen cooking and creating a collaborative family recipe book

A collaborative recipe cookbook is a way to gather and publish a diverse collection of recipes from any group of people. Collaborative cookbooks can be built simply by one person collecting and compiling all of the recipes into one place — say a spreadsheet or document that is easily printed. Other ways to create a collaborative recipe book include utilizing virtual tools built specifically for the task — which we’ll touch more on in a moment.

No matter how you choose to collect and publish your recipe book, the goal is collaboration: gathering a diverse selection of recipes from among your family and/or community. The experience of sharing a personal or beloved, passed-down recipe, and receiving a finished cookbook that allows you to try new recipes from friends and your community, is what makes these cookbooks so unique.

Good Reasons to Start a Collaborative Family Recipe Book

A woman cooking alone at home, smiling - probably with a recipe for a collaborative family recipe book!

Collaborative cookbooks come in all shapes and sizes, and each serves a unique purpose. Here are some perfect times to create a collaborative family recipe book:

Collecting all of the family recipes and handing out cookbooks at a family reunion is a fun way to celebrate and preserve family traditions and heritage
For personalizing a birthday party for a family or community member
A memorable birthday gift for your wife or mother, husband or father or parents
A retirement gift for your parents
An anniversary gift for your parents or grandparents
A Mother’s or Father’s Day gift
A holiday gift, like for Christmas or Chanukkah
A gift for kids going off to college or getting their first apartment or house
A wedding gift
A creative way to bring together your family, whether it’s with grown children who have moved away, extended family you want to connect with or a community of friends and loved ones

One of our favorite uses for the collaborative recipe book is as a group activity. Groups of people, from families to large remote companies, use tools such as Newlywords to gather recipes into a collaborative recipe book that gets printed and shipped to each person involved. Individuals can then experience the joy of trying each other’s recipes in their kitchens.

How to Create a Collaborative Family Recipe Book: Step-by-Step Guide

A woman in a zoom call while cooking to plan a collaborative family recipe book

Digital tools are everywhere, which means creating a recipe book with a group — especially a group of family members that is spread out across the country or the world — is easier than ever. Instead of chasing down recipes via email or over the phone, online platforms let you contact, collect, and design your cookbook in one place.

Step 1: Choose Your Participants

The first step is to decide who will participate in your collaborative cookbook. Friends? Blood relatives? An entire community group? The options are endless. Once you have decided who will participate in your collaborative cookbook, you’re just five simple steps away from creating the perfect collection of recipes.

Step 2: Choose a Platform

Parents and child cooking by a laptop, creating a collaborative family recipe book

The next step is to choose the right platform for your recipe book. There are many options that provide various levels of organization and production, including:

Basic tools such as Google Sheets or a Word document provide one way to organize your recipes. The final result won’t look or feel neat, but both are options for collecting everything in one place.

More advanced options include designing your own cookbook in a program such as Canva or InDesign. This is a great option for those who have plenty of time to invest in their collaborative cookbook, who only wish to publish a virtual version, and who love to design page layouts.

Another fantastic option is finding a platform such as Newlywords that specializes in book templates, design, and collaboration. Instead of chasing down the recipes and designing each page yourself, Newlywords tools allow you to upload recipe content and photos, invite collaborators, and edit content all in one place. Digital templates make it easy to create a recipe book that looks like a professional cookbook. You can share ingredients, step-by-step processes, notes, and even photos of the food, or of you and your family cooking together. Collaboration tools mean everyone can participate in the creation of a virtual recipe book and enjoy both a digital PDF and printed book to share with friends and family.

Step 3: Create a Structure

A woman writing on a notebook that says "Menu" on the cover in the kitchen for a collaborative family recipe book

Photo by Katya Wolf on Pexels.com

Once you’ve chosen the right platform for your cookbook, create a structure for organizing the recipes. Examples include:

Organization based on specific meals: Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, drinks and desserts.
Cuisine or Ethnicity: If your family or group enjoys diverse culinary backgrounds, consider organizing the cookbook by cuisine or ethnicity. This can celebrate the cultural diversity within your family or community, grouping recipes into sections like Italian, Mexican, Indian, etc.
Seasonal Recipes: Organize recipes by the seasons, highlighting ingredients that are best or available during specific times of the year. This could include sections like summer barbecues, winter comfort foods, spring fresh produce, or autumn harvests.
Special Occasions: Create sections dedicated to dishes that are favorites for celebrations and special occasions, such as birthdays, anniversaries, national holidays, and family reunions. This can include everything from appetizers and main courses to festive desserts and drinks.
Family Favorites: Have a section devoted to all-time family favorites or “signature dishes” from different family members. This could also include the stories behind why these dishes are cherished, adding a personal touch.
Health-Focused Categories: If your family or group is health-conscious, consider sections like gluten-free, vegan, low-carb, or heart-healthy recipes. This not only caters to dietary preferences but also helps those looking for specific types of recipes easily find what they need.
Contributor Features: Each contributor could have their own section where they share their favorite recipes along with personal anecdotes or cooking tips. This personalizes the cookbook and gives each participant a spotlight.
Quick and Easy Meals: For busy weekdays or times when cooking elaborate meals isn’t feasible, a section dedicated to quick and easy recipes can be very useful.

Deciding on a cookbook structure first will make the collaborative experience easier and more fun. If you’re using a spreadsheet to collect recipes, add a new tab for each type of recipe. Otherwise, create shared Google folders for each recipe type to keep things organized.

Many collaborative platforms allow you to create folders or other systems, so contributors can easily add recipes in the right place. If you’re working with an entire group of collaborators, we highly recommend sticking with a digital platform that already has the collaborative tools built in.

Step 4: Start Adding Your Favorite Recipes

A mom and her son cooking in a kitchen together for a collaborative family recipe book

Now you can add all your favorite recipes to the book. You can do this by adding them to the spreadsheet, uploading a document of each recipe to a folder, or adding your recipes to your Newlywords template.

As the first to add your recipes to the collaborative recipe book, you’ll make it easier for your friends or colleagues to see how to structure their contributions. With platforms such as Newlywords, it’s easy to format your recipes and photos to look like a professional cookbook. Adding your recipes and photos will inspire your group to visualize the final product and decide how to contribute.

Step 5: Share The Link With The Group for Them to Participate

Once you’ve added all your recipes, invite your group or colleagues to share theirs! You can do this by sharing a link to your spreadsheet, using Google tools that allow them to add documents to folders, or emailing the link through the Newlywords platform.

Be sure to provide any helpful instructions, such as the planned structure for the cookbook or how to add, organize, and design content. Then watch as your group gets to work and your collaborative recipe book comes to life!

Step 6: Incorporating Images

A woman in a kitchen showing a salad and spoon to a laptop, possibly for a collaborative family recipe book

Adding images to your collaborative family cookbook not only enhances its visual appeal but also helps to bring the recipes to life. Here are the types of images to consider including in the book:

High-quality photos of the finished dishes to give readers an idea of what to expect and to entice them to try cooking them.
Step-by-step photos for more complex recipes, which can be especially helpful for novice cooks.
Personal photographs that depict family members cooking together, special gatherings, or the original recipe cards, particularly if they are handwritten heirlooms.

Adding images like these creates a more intimate and cherished cookbook, making it not just a collection of recipes, but a family treasure filled with memories and stories. When adding images, ensure they are well-lit and clear, and consider the layout and design of the pages so that text and images are balanced and complement each other effectively. A platform like Newlywords has pre-made layouts to choose from and edit yourself so you an easily fit images and text together or separately on pages as needed.

Step 7: Publish Your Book

Photo by Ron Lach on Pexels.com

When all the recipes are in place, it’s time to publish and share your cookbook. “Publishing” can be done in several ways. For spreadsheets, you can simply share the link with others. If you designed your own layout using tools such as Canva and InDesign, save and download your work as a shareable PDF. Collaboration platforms provide ways to download a digital cookbook, although that usually requires a fee.

Newlywords, however, offers free publication of e-books (PDFs). Not only that, but if you absolutely love your virtual cookbook, you can easily upgrade to a printed version. Turn your beautiful, one-of-a-kind collaborative recipe collection into a hardcover, professional-quality cookbook!

How To Use Handwritten Recipes In Your Collaborative Family Cookbook

A woman cooking in a kitchen with a laptop facing her

Handwritten recipes are treasures that carry the personal touch and history of those who cooked before us. Incorporating these into your collaborative family cookbook not only preserves these recipes but also captures the essence of your family’s culinary heritage.

Digitization

Begin by digitizing the handwritten recipes you have. This can be done by scanning them or taking high-resolution photographs. Ensure the images are clear and readable. If necessary, use photo editing tools (like Photoshop or Lightroom) to enhance the visibility and reduce shadows or stains.

Inclusion in the Book

Once digitized, these recipes can be included as images in the cookbook. This preserves the original handwriting and adds a nostalgic element to the book. If the handwriting is difficult to decipher, consider typing out the recipe text as well and placing it alongside the image for clarity.

Personal Stories

Encourage contributors to include a short story or memory associated with the handwritten recipes they submit. This could be a memory of learning to cook the dish with a loved one or a funny story about a kitchen mishap.

Layout Tips

Design the layout so that each handwritten recipe has enough space around it to include annotations or translations if the handwriting is old or uses colloquial terms that might be unfamiliar to younger generations.

How Many Recipes Should be in a Family Recipe Book?

A grandmother and grandson reading a cookbook in a kitchen wearing aprons with ingredients on the countertop

Photo by Los Muertos Crew on Pexels.com

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to how many recipes should be included in a family cookbook. The number can vary depending on the purpose of the cookbook and the scope of the family’s culinary repertoire. Here are some things to consider to help you decide how many recipes to include in your book:

Consider the Purpose: If the cookbook is intended as a comprehensive record of family recipes, you might aim to include as many recipes as possible. However, if the goal is to create a themed cookbook, such as holiday meals or quick family dinners, then a smaller, more curated selection might be more appropriate.

Balance Variety and Manageability: Aim for a balance that reflects the diversity of the family’s tastes and cooking styles without making the book too cumbersome. A good range to start with might be 30-50 recipes. This allows for a variety of dishes, including appetizers, mains, desserts, and beverages, without overwhelming the contributors or the readers.

Flexibility Is Key: Remember, a family cookbook can always be a living document. Starting with a smaller number of recipes can be less daunting, and you can always plan to add more in subsequent editions as more family members contribute.

Engagement and Feedback: Consider getting feedback from potential contributors on how many recipes they think should be included, or set a goal for each contributor to submit a certain number of recipes to ensure even participation.

The Power of Shared Family Cookbooks

A father and daughter holding flour together with a cookbook on the countertop

Photo by Ron Lach on Pexels.com

While we can’t always be at the table to share food with our loved ones, friends or community, virtual tools allow us to still make food a shared experience and common ground.

Creating a collaborative recipe book opens the door for us to come together and not just share our favorite foods, but also a part of who we are

These cookbooks are more than just a way to collect your favorite recipes in one organized space. It’s also how we share and preserve cultural and family traditions for other generations, groups, and families to enjoy.