How should a home cook organise recipes?

One searchable destination, transcribed rather than screenshotted, and tagged by what you have rather than what the dish is. A tag like 'uses up cream' is more useful in practice than 'dessert', because it matches how you actually search on a weeknight.

Does doubling a recipe mean doubling every ingredient?

No. Seasoning and raising agents usually need less than the multiple suggests, cooking time changes with depth rather than volume, and tin geometry does not scale linearly - two 8-inch tins are not equivalent to one 16-inch tin, because area scales with the square of the radius.

When does home cooking become a food business?

In practice when you take money for food more than occasionally, buy ingredients specifically to sell, or pack food in advance for collection. That last one matters most: packed in advance and sold direct makes it PPDS food, which requires a compliant ingredient label.

Recipe Management for Home Cooks (UK 2026)

Home cooks and food businesses need different things from a recipe system, and most advice conflates them. This is the home-cook version: capture, scale, plan — plus an honest note on when you have crossed a line into needing something else. See Paprika and Recipe Keeper compared.

A system that survives contact with a Tuesday

The test of a recipe system is not how it looks when you set it up, it is whether you use it when you are tired. Three properties matter more than features: it must be fast to add to, searchable by what you have, and readable with wet hands.

Capture in one place. Whatever you use, one destination. Recipes split across screenshots, saved posts and a notebook are effectively lost.
Transcribe, do not screenshot. A photo of a page is not searchable or scalable. Ingredients and quantities as text takes two minutes.
Tag by what you have, not what it is. “Uses up cream” is a more useful tag than “dessert”.

Scaling without ruining it

Doubling a recipe is not doubling every number. Three things do not scale linearly:

Seasoning and leavening — salt and raising agents usually need less than the multiple suggests
Cooking time — a double-depth tray takes considerably more than double, and a wider one less
Tin geometry — two 8-inch tins are not one 16-inch tin; area scales with the square of the radius

For the arithmetic, our guide to scaling recipes works through a 1×/4×/10× example.

Have you crossed the line?

There is a point where home cooking becomes a small business, and it is usually crossed before anyone notices. The signals are practical rather than legal:

You are taking money for food more than occasionally
Someone has asked what is in it, for allergy reasons
You are buying ingredients in bulk specifically to sell
You are packing food in advance for someone to collect

The last one matters most. Packed in advance and sold direct means it is PPDS food, and it needs a compliant label — see the Natasha’s Law checklist. If that is you, scaling a home baking business covers what comes next.

Frequently asked questions

Where should I store all my recipes? One searchable place you will actually open. A recipe app, a notes app with tags, or a spreadsheet all work; splitting across three does not.

Do I need to register with the council? Only if you are selling. Registration is free and required at least 28 days before you start trading.

Recipe Management for Home Cooks

A system that survives contact with a Tuesday

Scaling without ruining it

Have you crossed the line?

Frequently asked questions

When cooking becomes selling