It may be an odd thing to hear from a food blogger, but I love recipes on paper. I just do, and I think a lot of people still do. There's just something about holding recipes and images in my hands that works better in the kitchen. I can mark the pages with a pencil and find my spot in the recipe easily without a screen timing out on me. Plus, I don't worry about splashing batter or dusting flour on paper like I do on my tablet or laptop. Yup, I love my cookbook collection. But it's not the only place I go to for printed recipes.
One of the best resources for home cooks is recipe booklets. About the size of a novel but only 20 or so pages, recipe booklets are responsible for some of my earliest successes in the kitchen. Sometimes these booklets come as a magazine insert, sometimes they're at the grocery store, and often they are produced by brands looking to promote their product. Sure, it's advertising. But, as I often tell my cooking class students, these companies want you to have success with their product, and they're going to use the very best recipes to win you over. Recipe booklets are the home cook's secret to fail-proof baking.
The Robin Hood flour company has been producing recipe booklets for three decades. Company spokesperson, Meribeth Burns, says research into current food trends, innovations and feedback from consumers all play important roles in recipe development. "Our recipe development teams have a strong focus on creating recipes that are easy-to-follow, time-saving, and inspirational, which are three of the most important factors our consumers look for when considering a recipe," Burns tells Family Feedbag. She says a lot of effort goes into creating the best recipes to showcase flour. "The process of creating the Robin Hood Bake Some Memories booklet begins almost immediately following the publication of the previous year's booklet. It is a fully integrated project that involves numerous teams from marketing to development and our test kitchen to advertising and design."
Through my own efforts some hand-me-downs from my grandmother's recipe collection, I have a lovely little collection of current and vintage recipe booklets in my kitchen. Half resource, half relic, I treasure them for the glimpse they offer into the past, and the recipes I might one day make again.
Do you collect recipe booklets? Which ones are your favourites?