How to Write a Recipe…

If you have ever tried to decipher an old recipe, you know how hard it is to figure out what they are trying to tell you to do! It’s easy to miss an ingredient or skip a step. Deciphering old recipes is almost an art form! 🙂 I wrote a blog post about it if you want to read it here. Recipes or “receipts” as they use to be called, were commonly written in paragraph form.

Later on recipes began to take on the form or order that we are familiar with now. Putting ingredients and amounts first and then the instructions in numerical order helped with making sure that recipes turned out perfectly! We really don’t know who was the first person to write recipes in the modern way we do today. Miss Eliza Leslie, a student of Mrs. Elizabeth Goodfellow, wrote her recipes in the style we recognize today. She made this recipe writing style popular among Americans in her many cookbooks.

If you are interested in coming up with and writing your own recipes, here are a few tips on the best way to write out recipes!

• Document your process
• List the ingredients in chronological order
• Spell out your ingredients and measurements
• List cooking times
• Make sure to indicate the size of the mixing bowls or cookware
• Be short and concise
• Use a descriptive title
• Include storage suggestions