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 145,000 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

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:

For more search tips, see our help section.

Explore

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.

• From our Authors tab explore:

  • A full list of authors from A-Z

  • Authors with the most recommendations by others

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

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).

• The list of titles on our Books tab can be ordered by:

  • Publication date

  • All books by title, A-Z

  • Most recommended books

  • Recently added

• Tip: to identify books which are availabe in full on the ckbk site, looking for the orange ckbk logo above the book; a grey ckbk logo indicates a licensed book which is coming soon.

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:

• Cookbook showcases

• Recipe collections

• Recently added books

• Recipe of the day

• Author spotlights

• Seasonal ingredients

• Trending recipes

Personalize your ckbk experience

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 each morning!

Unit preference

Do you always like to use cups for measurements? Or do you prefer metric? Select your preferred units via the unit settings page, to ensure that recipes are automatically converted.

Dark mode and font size

Do you need to make ckbk’s text larger for legibility? Do find dark mode easier on your eyes? No problem - just visit the Appearance settings page.

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!