Features & Stories

How to get the most from ckbk

Using ckbk: a guide for new members

ckbk is the ultimate service for cookbook lovers and culinary professionals, offering cover to cover access to a curated collection of the world's great cookbooks, including over 120,000 recipes, fully searchable from any device.

To help you find your way around, here are tips for making effective searches, saving recipes and other records for a later time, sharing favorite finds with the ckbk community, and taking ckbk with you wherever you go.


Search

 
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Search results for “asparagus photo” with smart-filters applied

Search results for “asparagus photo” with smart-filters applied

You can search our library for:

  • Book Titles

  • Author’s Names

  • Recipes (by name, ingredient, or cuisine)

  • Reference articles

Search by book title, author, ingredient, dish, occasion or culinary term (e.g. “Oaxaca”, “Ducasse”, “asparagus”, “soufflé”, “easter”, “bain-marie”).

 

Search tips for finding exactly what you want:

Refine results by adding additional terms

(e.g. “Norwegian fish recipes”, “gluten-free vegan cakes”)

Limit results to recipes only by adding “recipe” to your search (e.g. “apple pie recipe”).

Refine with built-in smart filters

Select one or multiple options based on cuisine, course, diet, complexity, era, author or book.

For a broad recipe search, start by searching for “all recipes” and then filter from there.

Find recipes that help you use the contents of your fridge

Search for recipes that include several ingredients (e.g. “tomatoes mozzarella”).

 

Explore regional cuisines

Add a country name to your search (e.g. “pancake Japan”). Alternately search for entire books on that cuisine by adding “cookbooks” to your search (e.g. “French cookbooks”).

Find photos and videos

Our library is full of drool-worthy photos and educational videos; discover the visual side of our recipes by adding the word “video”, or “photo” to your search (e.g. “asparagus photo”, “pasta video”);

Missing an ingredient?

We’ll help you with ingredient substitutions. Search by ingredient to find reference articles or recipes to make the ingredient from scratch (e.g. “ras al hanout”).

 

Exclude ingredients from search

Does cilantro taste like soap to you? Exclude any ingredient from recipe results by adding a minus sign before the item you want to ignore (e.g. “salsa verde -cilantro”).

Smart thesaurus

Our smart thesaurus recognizes spelling variations and will keep all your kebab/kabob’s straight.

Sort results

Tap into the wisdom of the community by sorting results by “popularity”, or find results based on publication age or how recently it was added to the ckbk platform.

For more search tips, see our help section.


Explore

Tessa Kiros’ author page with titles she’s authored and books she recommends

Tessa Kiros’ author page with titles she’s authored and books she recommends

For culinary explorers, our site is designed to help you find new and related results on your topic of interest. Start with a search query or begin browsing from the Author and Books menu.

Visit our author pages

Each author page gives you a rich introduction to the author containing a short author biography, a list of their books, links to their website and in many cases, a list of their favorite cookbooks.

Browse our category bookshelves

Whatever the topic, you are likely to find a plenty to dig into on ckbk’s browsable bookshelves. Each book page shows a list of the bookshelves - click the name of a shelf, to browse more books in that category. e.g. Bread, Japan, Family or Soups and Starters.

 
 

Explore the full content of every book

Explore the Table of Contents to access the full content of every book

Explore the Table of Contents to access the full content of every book

ckbk gives you cover-to-cover access to every book, not just the recipes. On each book’s homepage you can read a synopsis of the book, browse recommendations by experts, pull up a list of all the recipes, or explore the full content via the table of contents (just click the ‘contents’ button on every book and recipe page).

Read books in full, and discover related recipes

  • You can use the Previous and Next buttons at the bottom of any recipe to browse the surrounding content in the chapter, or even to read the book from start to finish.

  • If you are using a keyboard, the left and right arrows offer a quick way to navigate through each chapter of the book in sequence.On a phone or tablet, you can simply swipe left or right to move to the previous or next recipe.

  • At the bottom of every recipe you will also find links to related recipes, and related reference content, from other books on ckbk.


Discover, inspire and share

What's more fun than finding a new favorite recipe? Sharing ideas with a community who loves great cooking as much as you do! Our Community Collections let you browse all the recipe playlists made by the ckbk community, and share your own collections for others to discover too!

Our Collections menu lets you swap between:

  • My Collections – a place to view all your collections. Edit to make them public or create a new collection.

  • Featured Collections – created by the ckbk team. Browse collections curated by the ckbk editorial team. You'll find timely suggestions and an ever-growing array of inspired culinary themes.

  • Ingredient Collections – highlighting interesting and out-of-the-box ways to use seasonal ingredients.

  • Community Collections – a place to browse all the public collections created by our community of ckbk members and featured authors. Tap into the collective wisdom of our food-loving community. Find ideas for seasonal menus, see which recipes are users' favorites, and dive into the collections created by ckbk featured authors.

Read more about Community Collections »


Save your favorites

Favorite recipes and books:

  • Click on the heart icon to add recipes, books or collections to your favorites list.

  • Print any recipe.

  • Share special finds using our social buttons.


Share reviews and ratings, ask questions and make private notes on any recipe

Find out more about ckbk’s community features here.

Home page content to help you discover ckbk

Check the ckbk home page regularly for a daily-changing selection of featured books, authors and recipes, all expertly curated by our editorial team.

Watch out for:

Explore recipe collections curated by ckbk

Explore recipe collections curated by ckbk

  • Cookbook showcases

  • Recipe collections

  • Recently added books

  • Recipe of the day

  • Author spotlights

  • Seasonal ingredients

  • Trending recipes

Stay up to date with notifications

The notifcations settings page lets you choose what appears in your ckbk notification feed (the bell icon at the top right). You can also choose which notifications to receive by email. Why not sign up for the Recipe of the Day email, for a daily dose of kitchen inspiration!

 
 

Don’t forget to download the ckbk app

ckbk is available not only on the web, but also as an iOS and Android app, offering an enhanced experience on your phone or tablet. When you view a recipe on the app, your phone screen won’t dim or lock – which makes all the difference if you have sticky hands!

 
 

Coming Soon

Here are some of the next features to look forward to:

  • Nutrition information – macro- and micro-nutrient information on every recipe.

  • Automatic conversions – switch from US to metric units, and scale recipes to make smaller or larger quantities.

  • Fridge foraging – provide a few ingredients from your fridge, and we’ll guide you through a series of questions to find the perfect recipe.

  • Grocery lists — ckbk users in the US can already purchase ingredients via Instacart, and support is planned for a wider range of grocery partners (and printable shopping lists).