Recipe Journal [Part II]

STARTING THE DESSERT SECTION

This post is a continuation from the last recipe journal post, Setting Up My Recipe Journal. Or you can watch the process video here to catch up. I decided against one big table of contents for this book. I couldn’t commit to adding tabs to the pages to separate sections, and I also just didn’t like the idea of numbering all the pages in one go. I’m still undecided, so that’s why you’ll see spaces for a page number not filled in yet.

BREAKING UP THE JOURNAL

I broke the book up into six sections: Breakfast, Appetizers & Snacks, Drinks, Salads, Entrees, and Sweets. We eat lots of small meals and desserts, so those sections are a few more pages than the others. I think we will have plenty of room to grow in this book. I got it here and may buy a second one to spill over into because I really like it so far.  Anyway, each section has it’s own smaller table of contents. So, for example, Breakfast has a title page that also doubles as a contents page for all of the breakfast recipes in the section.

I imagine the first section to fill up will be Desserts. I bake a lot of cookies for the family and those are the sort of recipes you just can’t wing it with, measurements need to be accurate.

As I worked on a few pages I began to feel a little repetition. This obviously led to my making stickers for my recipe journal. I printed up the simple pieces that you need on every page, over and over again. It’s been so helpful on the days that I don’t have as much time, but still want to work on the book.

Here’s a process video of me setting up a spread for my very first cake from scratch. I can’t believe I turned thirty before I even attempted making a cake that wasn’t pre-made and pre-packaged in a cardboard box. When Isla’s first birthday was coming up, I knew I didn’t want her first cake to be made by anyone but her mommy, so I decided this was the prefect excuse to try a cake from scratch.

ADDING MEMORIES MAKES IT A JOURNAL VS. A BOOK

I got the recipe here and it was super simple to follow! I made a double batch because I can’t help myself sometimes, I got excited. I didn’t use all of the frosting because I didn’t want to overwhelm my daughter’s brand new taste buds but I think I ended up using a perfect amount! The cake and the frosting were very rich and buttery! I had to include a picture of baby girl at her first party and I cannot wait to look back on this spread for years to come.

The other two recipes are super simple pies (lemon and lime) that I have been making since I was a child myself. I think they were a way for my mom to teach us how to read a recipe, but now and then I get a hankering for one of them. I’m pretty sure we got the recipe’s off of the packaging on one of the ingredients.

RECIPE JOURNAL SUPPLY LIST:

HOW DO YOU ORGANIZE YOUR RECIPES? DO YOU HAVE MULTIPLE SYSTEMS?