How to gather recipes from family without the chaos

A personalised cookbook lives or dies on its contributions. The design, the cover, the paper - all of that matters. But the recipes and the people behind them are what make someone cry when they open it.

Getting those contributions in without a month of chasing is a different skill entirely.

Start with a deadline, not a request

The biggest mistake organisers make is sending a vague ask: “Would love it if you could contribute a recipe!” No deadline, no urgency. It sits in an inbox and gets forgotten.

Give people a specific date. Not “by the end of the month” - an actual date. “I need your recipe by the 20th” works far better. People respect a concrete ask.

Make it embarrassingly easy

Some contributors will dive in and write a full page with photos and a story. Most will not. Design your ask for the lowest-effort version: one recipe, one short note about what it means to them, optionally a photo. That is it.

The My Personalised Cookbook platform sends contributors a unique link. They click it, fill in their recipe on a simple form, and they are done. No account, no app to download, no PDF to format.

Handle the “I cook by feel” problem

Every family has one. The relative who has been making the same dish for forty years and has never once measured anything.

Offer to help. Get them on the phone, talk through the recipe together, and write it up yourself. You can add it on their behalf through the organiser dashboard and credit it to them. It takes twenty minutes and means the recipe actually makes it in.

Chase once, personally

A group reminder rarely works. What works is a personal message - even a short one: “Just checking in - have you had a chance to add your recipe? Would really love to include it.”

Do this once, a few days before the deadline. Chasing more than that starts to feel like a obligation, which is the opposite of how you want people to feel when they contribute.

Close the book on time

There will always be someone who misses the deadline. Decide in advance whether you are going to hold for them or not.

If the book is time-sensitive - a birthday, a wedding - set a hard cut-off and stick to it. A book that arrives on time with thirty contributions is better than a late book with thirty-two.

If you have flexibility, a one-week extension is usually enough to catch the stragglers without dragging the whole project out.

What to do with gaps

If you end up short on recipes, remember that you can add your own. A cookbook with fifteen contributed recipes and five of your own - clearly attributed - is a full, generous book. There is no rule that says every recipe has to come from someone else.