There’s nothing quite as special as a hand-written recipe.
The rushed scrawl of a passionate chef, the blotchy stains signalling home-cooking memories of time gone by – passed from generation to generation, these wonderful relics connect us with our past and allow us to innovate and experiment with our recipes in the future.
“…and the depths and heights of gastronomical enjoyment to be found at the family board” M.F.K Fisher writes in her collection of essays, An Alphabet for Gourmets.
Home chefs who come from a long line of family cooks have experienced the stresses of using a grandparent’s old recipe, and have suffered the consequences when their watchful eyes catch any slight alteration of the holy instructions – whether the resulting dish is improved or not.
Nevertheless, if you’d love nothing more than to hand-down a grimoire-esque, dogeared, beaten and entirely handwritten recipe book for your family to fight over, you’ll need a decent shell. Just because it’s going to be a piece of history, doesn’t mean it can’t start off pretty.
We’ve rounded up a selection of the most functional and aesthetically pleasing recipe files that money can buy. Keep scrolling for our top picks.
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Papier Hanging Fruits Recipe Journal
Papier has such a beautiful range of personaliseable recipe journals, it was near impossible to choose just a single one to feature. However, we absolutely adore the citrusy lemon design that makes us think of lemon groves in the Amalfi Coast, alongside the vintage ‘recipes’ font. It’s the perfect, nostalgia-inducing piece to take your recipe collection to the next level. This journal has 96 templated leaves for you to jot down your most-treasured recipes.
Buy now £26.00, Papier
Cath Kidston GBBO Showstopper Recipe Notebook
Fans of GBBO will adore Cath Kidston’s limited edition notebooks, made for keeping your baking hacks and recipes safe from prying eyes. The A5 design has plenty of pages for notes along with areas to jot down ingredients too.
Buy now £10.00, Cath Kidston
Kate Spade New York Recipe Box with 40 Double Sided Recipe Cards, Rainbow Plaid
Bright and beautiful, this recipe card holder is in a trademark Kate Spade design but it’s not a case of all style no substance. The box comes with 40 recipe cards with space for prep time, ingredients and the number of servings each dish yields, giving you all the info you need at a glance. There are also tabbed divides to organise your ideas from breakfast, soups, sauces, appetizers, entrees, desserts, beverages, and miscellaneous.
Buy now £30.00, Amazon
Recipe Binder 3-Ring A4 Kit
This all-in-one recipe binder of dreams is an incredibly sturdy, ultra-organised option for any home chef. The three-ring binder comes with 50 plastic A4 sheet protectors, 16 dividers and 32 tab labels for fuss-free recipe management. Meanwhile, the inside of the front and back covers feature a range of incredibly useful information for daily cooking, including essential measurement conversions. It can hold up to 300 pages worth of recipes, so it’s sure to go the extra mile when it comes to preserving the family food secrets.
Buy now £23.99, Amazon
Blank Recipe Book | DIY Recipe Journal
Sleek and discreet, this hardback DIY recipe journal from LuckiesGifts on Etsy comes highly positively reviewed. Handmade by a small business, each double spread within the journal has a template with ample space to jot down the ingredients, method, reviews and even a photo of the finished product for future generations to see how it’s really done. It includes approximately 230 pages and 80 recipe templates.
Whether you’d like to include personal illustrations of your meals or polaroid photos, we think the ability to visually document your masterpieces is a unique and wonderful addition to this recipe journal.
Buy now £20.00, Etsy
White Peaches Recipe Book With Dividers
This adorable recipe file is adorned with some bright and beautiful watercolour style peaches. Zero hassle and incredibly simple to use, this file comes with dividers and recipe templates for the active home cook. Simply peachy.
Buy now £18.00, Paperchase
Recipe File Terrazzo
For the home chefs who haven’t yet invested in a recipe-stand, this gorgeous terrazzo file by busyb has you covered. The flip-top design incorporates an easy built-in stand and the included plastic sleeves will keep up to 80 recipes protected from spillages and sprays.
Your purchase includes 16 recipe cards and five index cards, but you can order more through the website here.
Buy now £14.99, busyb
WHSmith Serenity Recipe Book
The gorgeous green bird and foliage design that graces this binder recipe folder certainly fills us with a sense of peace. Another binder that contains imperial, celcius and farenheight conversion tables for the utmost ease, we’re huge fans of its functionality and versatility. It has also got some handy pocketed tabbed sections for meat, fish, vegetable and dessert dishes so you can easily section your recipes.
Buy now £12.99, WHSmith
