My Recipe Book 3.0 review: keep your cooking recipes synced between iPhone and iPad

By Leanna Lofte
last updated

My Recipe Book is a cooking app that lets you store and organize recipes you find into one convenient location -- your iPhone or iPad. With the new KitchenSync introduced in My Recipe Book 3.0, you can actually now store all those recipes on as many devices as you want.

One of the biggest new features of My Recipe Book is that it's now universal for iPhone and iPad (previously iPad only). This makes it much easier to use your shopping list while in the grocery store or share a new recipe with your friend while out and about.

Another improvement to My Recipe Book is to its Easy Import system. This awesome feature lets you find recipes on the popular cooking websites (epicurious, MyRecipes, CookingLight, Food Network, etc) and quickly import them into My Recipe Book. It's now incredibly easy to use and more reliable.

My Recipe Book also includes a shopping list. From any recipe, you can select which ingredients you want to add to your list. A great feature of the list is that not only are the ingredients added, but the exact amount needed is also included.

On the iPad, you can also edit your recipes, add notes, use multiple timers, and add your own custom recipes. Another awesome feature of My Recipe Book is the ability to automatically convert the serving size of a recipe without having to do any of the math yourself. Simply pick a multiplier (like twice as many than the original recipe) and My Recipe Book will do the rest!

The good

  • Sync devices with KitchenSync
  • Import recipes directly from selected websites
  • Sort recipes by keyword, category, ready time, or dietary restriction
  • Grocery list included and lets you add your own custom ingredients
  • Add notes about each recipe
  • Adjust serving sizes -- My Recipe Book automatically converts measurements
  • Multiple kitchen timers built in and run in background
  • Add photos for each dish
  • Save favorites
  • Queue up the recipes you want to try
  • Adjust font size
  • Add recipes directly into iPad
  • Internet connection not required

The bad

  • Many features are iPad only (notes, timers, photos, editing recipes, font size, adding custom recipes)
  • After changing the serving size, all the buttons in the bottom toolbar become inactive. You have to hit back and reopen the recipe to favorite, share, or queue
  • Boring/plain interface (in my opinion)

The bottom line

My Recipe Book is an excellent cooking app for those who like to discover new recipes online. Being able to quickly import recipes from all the popular cooking websites, edit them, and even add your own, makes My Recipe Book a must-have for every cook. The new addition of KitchenSync is the cherry on top to an already awesome app.

Do you have any favorite recipes that you found online? Please share them in the comments below!

Leanna Lofte
Leanna Lofte

Former app and photography editor at iMore, Leanna has since moved on to other endeavors. Mother, wife, mathamagician, even though she no longer writes for iMore you can still follow her on Twitter @llofte.

11 Comments
  • Recipie for a tired looking app:
    1 iOS device
    10 Cups of skeuomorphism I'm sure this is a great app, but the skeuomorphism in today's iOS apps looks horrible. I'm not a 10 year old and need bright pretty graphics. I can't wait for Apple to do away with this look and feel and update their UI guidelines.
  • Yeah, I'm not a fan of the look, either, but it does offer great functionality.
  • I don't understand why they limited features only to iPad; however, it does offer great functionality. The GUI on the other hand..looks like shit.
  • This appears to be a cool app for anyone that collect recipes. I will have to share with my sister who love to cook and have recipes books. Great review!
  • Skeumorphism to the max. Yuck! For an app with pretty much the same features, a clean design, plus a desktop web-based counterpart check out PepperPlate. http://www.pepperplate.com
  • Looks nice. I have been using Evernote to clip recipes, and can put them in different food notebooks. The nice thing is having it on the iPhone, and MacBook Pro. I have never gone over the monthly free allowance. You can get premium if you want, but it is free, and works well with the Evernote food app. For a fantastic Chili recipie check out the link below. You can use top round instead of briskit. It is an excellent Chili. Instead of the strong coffee at the end, I put a packet of starbucks via french roast. Works great. Well bad iMore will not let me put a link up, said spam, so if you want the recipe, just search Devon's award winning Chili. It will be worth the trouble.
  • Looks nice but Evernote is the way to go for recipes. With the clipping features, tagging features and search features Evernote can not be topped. Not to mention that there is an Evernote client for just about every device on the planet. Evernote also has their food app that will pull all your recipes from your Evernote account.
  • Yeah, I use Evernote for my recipes too, it works with every website and blog out there.
    Thanks for the suggestion Leanna, I'll check it out.
  • I've got my recipes all as word docs in a folder locally and on skydrive. So the big hurdle for me is moving them from a word doc to software. It's either really cumbersome to add info, no mass cut and paste, no desktop option at all, or worse no way to add my own recipes at all. i will check out that pepperplate though. That's a new one for me.
  • I use Paprika, works great and supports many sites.
  • I love this app! I have been using it since the developer first put it in the app store. Its super easy to get recipes off the internet! The app does everything for you. I have no problem with its appearance. Everything on the page is related to my recipes. What would I want? Animated pots and pans? Hopefully everything stays as it is. To me, this app is fantastic and the only one I use.