Food is the love language of our branch of the Barracosa family. My husband, David, prepares a Christmas feast for us each year, complete with a run sheet of the exact timings particular dishes need to go in the oven. My mother-in-law, Dianne, has a freezer full of pasta sauces ready to hand out to her sons and daughters-in-law when we have a busy week. My father-in-law, Mac, maintains he is the best at stirring. Most of our go-to recipes have been passed down through the Portuguese and Croatian lines of the family: cabbage rolls, feijoada, custard tarts. And, because Nannas like to keep their secrets, most of the details are stored only in our heads.

There are a few recipes that made it to the handwritten stage: scraps of paper that contain no specific amount for the ingredients and instructions as vague as “mix together”. But, as my son, Luca, 3, starts to discover the fun of cooking with us, I wanted to create a record of these pieces of the past that will last him – and us – forever. So, this family recipe book created with Officeworks’ Print + Create service is an attempt to record one of the most important parts of our family history: the food.

A series of images of Luca, David, Kate and Dianne Barracosa in a kitchen following along with the recipe in their DIY family recipe book to make crescent biscuits.

‍Collate Your Recipes and Photos

The first – and most challenging – step of creating this family recipe book is to track down the handwritten notes, scraps of paper and dog-eared cookbooks that feature the recipes you want to include. Fortunately, my mother-in-law had most of the handwritten pieces from years past stored in one cookbook (incidentally, a photocopied and bound school fundraiser cookbook from 1991!). Leave yourself plenty of time to contact relatives in far-flung locations to locate the recipes from your childhood you want to include.

Then, if possible, find your favourite family snaps or pictures of the dishes you’ll feature to include throughout the cookbook.

‍SEE ALSO: How to Make a Scrapbook: The Best-Ever Guide

A close-up shot of a handwritten recipe being placed on a flatbed scanner to be scanned and uploaded to Officeworks Print + Create to make a family recipe book.‍

Scan Your Recipes

I wanted to preserve as much of the original handwriting as I could, so I decided to scan the original recipes so I could feature them as images within my family recipe book. Simply connect a scanner to your computer and work through each recipe one by one. Save each scan as a JPEG file to make it easier to upload when it comes to creating the book.

‍Choose the Photo Book Style

There are scores of different photo book styles available through Officeworks’ Print + Create service. I chose the 10-inch by 8-inch personalised hardcover photo book: the size and orientation was right for most of my family members to slot into their existing cookbook collection, and the laminated hardcover would make it easy to wipe down any spills that might occur while the book is in use. 

‍Freshly made crescent biscuits on a plate sitting on a kitchen benchtop next to a cooling rack and the Barracosa family recipe book.

‍Hot Tip: Most photo books are a minimum of 20 pages, with a maximum of 120 pages, so make sure you have enough recipes to fill it before you begin.

‍SEE ALSO: Clever Poster Decoration Ideas for Your Home

‍Lay Out Your Pages

Now for the fun part! Once you’ve chosen your book size, click through to follow the steps to create it. 

Step 1: Upload all your scans and photos into the drag-and-drop box. Once they’ve loaded, add them to your project.

Step 2: Select the number of photos you want featured per page. This can be changed later, but I added one per page to ensure each recipe had enough space.

Step 3: At this point, you can choose to create your own design, or a layout and autofill can be done for you. For this family recipe book project, the ‘Create your own’ options works best so you can ensure the recipes and photos of the dishes match up.

Step 4: Work through the layout for each page. I chose to feature the scanned recipe on the right-hand page throughout the book, with the recipe name, a photo of the dish and a short paragraph about what each recipe has meant to our family on the left-hand page. Scroll through the book using the arrow below the layout. You can add, remove or reorder pages as you work through.

Hot Tip: Every page will need an image in order for the book to process and print properly, so make sure you don’t have any text-only pages.

Step 5: When you’re happy with how each page looks, follow the prompts to order your book and choose how many you want. I ordered several as gifts for my family members this Christmas.

‍SEE ALSO: DIY Gift Ideas to Celebrate Life’s Small Moments

An assortment of Officeworks Print + Create photo books and an Epson scanner for creating a family recipe book. The products are shown on various brightly coloured backgrounds.

‍What to Try