When recipes are shared with family and friends, and passed down through the generations, they carry a lot more with them—important cooking skills, words of wisdom, and so many food-related stories! Preserving your family’s best recipes in a custom cookbook ensures they’re never lost to time. Family recipe books make excellent gifts, too.
Creating your own family recipe book is a fairly straightforward project, thanks to Mixbook’s collection of easily customizable cookbook themes. Of course, you’ll need to gather the recipes, photos, and stories to accompany them. What a wonderful excuse to get the best cooks in your family together in the kitchen to prepare and share a feast—and a photoshoot.
It all starts with a family recipe book idea. Here are five suggestions to inspire your culinary creation.
Family recipes over generations
Most families have at least a few recipes that can be traced back to older generations. The exact details might have been forgotten, and the ingredients and techniques evolved over time. But knowing a dish tastes almost exactly like the one cooked by your grandparent, great-grandparent, and even generations beyond feels really special. Capture, and continue, this sense of culinary inheritance by creating a book of multi-generational family recipes.
The Family Recipe Cookbook is designed for just such a project. Its minimalist aesthetic has a timeless feel that appeals to all generations—so be sure to order copies for everyone. The book’s chapters are organized into breakfasts, mains, sides, and desserts, but you can easily customize these around your own unique family recipe collection.
Gather recipes, tips, memories, and stories from family members across all generations, and be sure to include kids in the project, too. They can describe their own culinary adventures, such as learning how to make scrambled eggs with Mom, or helping Grandad bake a birthday cake for Grandma. The finished family recipe book will connect and celebrate generations of delicious food and precious family.
Holiday cookies & desserts
Who doesn't love holiday baking?! Whether you have a famous repertoire of cookie recipes or you’re more of the family taste-tester, holiday baking is a delightful idea for a custom cookbook. Gather favorite holiday treat recipes and photos from all your family members or take new ones of your own.
Photos of holiday bakes are especially photogenic, even when they’re not “perfectly” decorated. Accent the recipe pages with family photos from past holiday seasons, plus shared memories, lines from favorite holiday songs, and fun holiday stickers.
Mixbook’s Holiday Recipe Cookbook is an ideal theme for this project. Its beautifully illustrated backgrounds and stickers of bows, holly sprigs, and gingerbread men all lend a timeless charm to the recipe book. Customize it with new or old photos of cookies and treats, ingredients, and beloved bakers at work in the kitchen. Pics of kids baking with their parents or grandparents are especially adorable.
A book by (or for) the best cook in the family
Collect all the favorite recipes from the family member who is for sure the best cook in the family. The auntie everyone agrees should always be in charge of Thanksgiving dinner. The cousin who bakes incredible cakes for all the birthdays. The Dad whose Sunday suppers you never stopped dreaming about, long after you left your childhood home. Honor their skills, and return the love they show through food, with a custom photo cookbook starring their best recipes.
Choose a photo book theme that captures the style of the family’s most acclaimed cook, as well as their culinary specialties. The Recipe Photo Book by Martha Stewart is a versatile choice with its charming patterns of illustrated fruits and vegetables. Or, you might prefer the vintage stylings of the Custom Heritage Cookbook by Martha Stewart. Be sure to include personal photos of the celebrated cook in addition to photos of the ingredients, cooking steps, and finished dishes.
Cocktail party recipe book
If you or certain family members are more skillful, and find more joy, behind the bar than standing over a stove, then why not create a custom cocktail party recipe book? This type of book is an excellent idea for a holiday or birthday gift. Or, give loved ones a copy for any kind of celebration that inspires the mixing, shaking, and sharing of cocktails!
Creating a cocktail/mocktail party recipe book is also a wonderful excuse for a get-together with family and friends. You could even host a recipe-sharing party and photoshoot just to get going on the book project. Along with the ingredients for their best concoctions, ask everyone to bring their most stylish glassware and accents such as stirrers, paper umbrellas, and garnishes. Have fun creating photo-worthy drink setups and snapping mixology demos, impromptu toasts, and smiling sips.
Putting all the photos, recipes, and tips together is super-easy with our Colorful Mod Cocktails Recipe Book. Its contemporary take on mid-century style evokes the heyday of cocktail parties.
Collaborate on a recipe book to celebrate, food, family & friends!
Preparing a family feast typically requires collaboration from multiple family members—one to peel the potatoes, another to oversee oven temps and times, and the real expert who knows if a dish needs more salt by smell alone. In the same manner, creating a custom family cookbook is often better as a collaborative project.
If you’re making a recipe book that will include contributions from multiple family members, collaborating directly on the project is often the best approach. With Mixbook’s built-in collaboration tools, every contributing cook in the family can be in charge of designing and editing their own pages or chapters.
To keep things cohesive across multiple contributions, have everyone come together to pick a theme you all love. How about the Modern Minimal Cookbook, which is super-versatile with its clean, contemporary style? Or the whimsical, pastel-hued Recipe Book by 1canoe2? Once you all agree on a theme, all the collaborators simply need to plug in their own recipes and photos. Give everyone a chance to review the book before ordering copies for the entire family to treasure.
Share your recipe book ideas
If you’re taking inspiration from one of these personalized recipe book and theme ideas—or if you have unique book ideas of your own—we’d love to hear about it! Share your customer story, email us at hello@mixbook.com, and use #Mixbook on social.
