For Father's Day, Kathy asked what I wanted for dinner and dessert.

Dinner was easy. I had a brisket in the freezer that I'd been meaning to smoke.

Dessert?

That one was easy too.

I told her, "I want Laura Lange's carrot cake."

Laura is the wife of my good friend, Brent. Last winter we were on a Klondike campout with the young men in the mountains. Brent brought this carrot cake that Laura had made, and after dinner he did something I'd never seen before.

He put a slice of carrot cake in a bowl...

...and poured milk over it.

I know.

It sounds strange.

But because carrot cake is denser than most cakes, it doesn't fall apart or get soggy like regular cake would. Instead, it soaks up just enough milk to become incredibly moist while still holding its shape.

Think of eating cake like a bowl of cereal.

It was absolutely delicious.

So I asked Brent if I could have the recipe.

A few minutes later, he texted me a photo of Laura's handwritten recipe.

Time to Put the Cook'n Elves to the Test

As soon as I received it, I had an idea.

Instead of typing the recipe into Cook'n myself, why not let the Cook'n Elves do the work?

I saved the image to my Photo Library, opened Cook'n, tapped Scan, and selected the photo.

To be honest...

I wasn't expecting perfection.

The recipe was handwritten.

There were scribbles.

There were highlighted sections.

And there weren't even any directions...just a list of ingredients!

I thought, "This should be interesting."

A few seconds later...

The Cook'n Elves absolutely nailed it.
(click here to see the recipe).

Not only did they correctly read the handwritten ingredients...

...they actually generated complete cooking directions from the ingredient list.

I just sat there laughing.

"That's amazing."

This feature has become so much better than I ever imagined.

Then I Had an Idea...

As impressed as I was, I immediately noticed something.

The process looked like this:

1. Save the recipe image to your Photo Library.
2. Launch Cook'n.
3. Tap Scan.
4. Choose Photo Library.
5. Select the image.

And then it hit me.

When you're browsing a recipe on the web, you don't have to go through all those steps.

You simply tap the Share button...

choose Cook'n...

and Cook'n Captures the recipe automatically.

Why shouldn't scanned recipes work exactly the same way?

Imagine finding a recipe image in Messages, Facebook, Pinterest, Photos, or anywhere else.

Instead of saving it first...

you simply tap Share → Cook'n...

and...

Bada bing!

The Cook'n Elves immediately Scan the recipe.

Five steps become two.

I liked the idea so much that I immediately created a Jira task for one of the Cook'n Elves.

Watch for this feature in an upcoming Cook'n update!

Then Another Elf Made It Even Better

While discussing this new feature during our weekly Elf meeting, Cook'n Elf Sebastian mentioned something he'd run into.

He was scanning a recipe that spanned five screenshots.

The Cook'n Scan feature already supports multiple images, but selecting them was a little tedious.

Choose one image...

tap the camera...

choose another...

tap the camera...

repeat five times.

Sebastian suggested something wonderfully simple.

"What if users could just select all of the images at once?"

Perfect.

Another Jira task.


I love it when great ideas come from people who actually use the software every day.

That's How Cook'n Gets Better

People often ask where new Cook'n features come from.

Some come directly from suggestions our customers send us.

Others happen because our own family uses Cook'n constantly.

We bump into the same little annoyances everyone else does.

The difference is...

we can fix them.

Sometimes an idea goes from "Wouldn't it be nice if..." to a Jira task in less than five minutes.

That's one of the advantages of building software that you genuinely use yourself....and that's one of the advantages of having magical Elves who are constantly working on making the app better!

And the Father's Day Meal?

Well...

The carrot cake?

10 out of 10.

Especially with the milk (sorry I didn't shoot a photo of it...I was too busy devouring it to think of snapping a pic!).

News that my daughter-in-law, Cecilia, is expecting grandbaby #6?

WOO HOOO!!!

The Father's Day gift my son Danny (one of the Cook'n Elves) 3D printed for me?

Absolutely awesome.

Click here to see it.

The brisket?

Let's just say...

I should have used Cook'n.

It was only the second brisket I've ever smoked, and I cooked it far too long. Everyone politely ate it, but I knew the truth.

It wasn't tender.

It wasn't juicy.

It was somewhere between "well done" and "shoe leather."

My brother-in-law makes incredible brisket, but when I asked why mine didn't turn out like his (after all...I followed his instructions to the T), he smiled and said,

"Yours must have been a lot smaller."

Thanks.

Very helpful.

See...this is what happens when I don't use Cook'n to help me cook my meals! I would have been better off finding a smoked brisket recipe here: Recently Made Recipes by Cook'n users because these recipes are proven, kitchen-tested by the best cooks I know! But, how to search for a brisket recipe?

Then another idea hit me.

Wouldn't it be great if I could search recipes based on what other Cook'n families have actually been making lately?

We've already got the Recently Made Recipes feature.

Now we need a way to search it.

Because if hundreds of Cook'n users have recently made an amazing brisket...

that's probably the recipe I should be cooking.

Looks like another Jira task is headed to the Cook'n Elves.

The good news?

The carrot cake made up for the brisket.

And thanks to one handwritten recipe from Laura Lange, Cook'n is about to become even easier to use.

    Dan Oaks
    Founder of DVO Enterprises
    Creator of Cook'n
    Husband of 1. Father of 5. Grandpa of 5.
    Monthly Newsletter Contributor since 2024
    Email the author! dan@dvo.com