I am a perfectionist. Each Recipe I put in my cookbooks was tested not once but as many times as necessary to make it infallible.

When you’ve done things a certain way all your life, you don’t even consider an alternative. So, you can imagine my surprise at the following question, which tends to repeat time and time again: ‘Did you really cook/bake all of these dishes?’.

I remember how angry I felt the first time I got asked this. ‘But how else would I write a cookbook?’ I thought. I took the question way too personally. If any of you asked me this some time ago, I apologise if I snapped at you

In my mind, a cookbook author should collect, design, test and write the recipes so anyone can replicate them in their kitchen. But as I browsed cookbook sections in bookshops, I started to understand the reasons behind that annoying question.

Cookbooks are mass-produced. And many feature recipes without photos or any other proof that the author tested them.

I understand the pressure in the publishing industry. Culinary trends change year in and year out, and authors must constantly spew new content. But cookbooks are a highly demanding genre requiring culinary passion and precision.

My goal is to write cookbooks that are both inspiring and foolproof. If you ever wondered how a cookbook I wrote that may be lying on your kitchen counter came about, read on.

1) Collecting and curating recipes

To write a cookbook with 100 recipes, you need to juggle at least 150 of them in your mind. The more dishes you consider, the sooner the concept of the cookbook becomes clear.

The list I made for the Croatian Desserts cookbook has 150 desserts. It’s three times longer than the actual cookbook. I needed extra mental space to shape chapters and themes with those desserts that made it into the cookbook. (Pssst – I have plans for the left-out recipes too!)

But how did I ever find 150 Croatian desserts in the first place? Good question. First, some recipes are just part of the everyday Croatian culture. The next step is to question your close and extended family, especially those who remember the old days.

I am fortunate to have family and in-laws coming from or living all over Croatia. With my Dalmatian father and Medjimurje mother, I can cover both coastal and continental Croatia. My husband’s family provides insight into Slavonia and central Croatia.

The third and most enjoyable step is to do research. As a trained anthropologist, I felt blissful travelling and asking people questions about local Food. I got to see how many dishes were prepared on-site, and, of course, I ate a lot.

I rarely plan food research. I go on a trip and keep my eyes open. In the last ten years, Nikica and I have explored every corner of Croatia, but we always make sure we do it with the locals.

2) Designing and testing the recipes

Some people think that traditional recipes are just written down without any input from the author. This is far from the truth.

Let’s look at the recipe for uštipci (fried dough balls). There are many variations because uštipci are common in Lika, Dalmatia and Hercegovina. And this is not all: a similar type of fried dough is widespread on the continent but with a different name.

As the author, I look for commonalities. I may collect ten different uštipci recipes, but instead of picking one, I will detect the essence of the dish. What’s that thing that makes uštipci fluffy on the inside and crispy on the outside? Why do they go so well with soft cheese and olives?

Once I decide that uštipci, for example, must be made with yoghurt and eggs, I go with one recipe. My next step is to test it – which is the hardest.

You all know how our grandmas cooked and baked. Gloriously, but without ever writing down recipes. So when the time came to pass down the mastery, their directions were extremely vague.

Translating a nebulous recipe into something foolproof can take more than one go. So, to go back to that question that used to annoy me: yes, I test and test until the recipe is flawless.

Some recipes I was given were so wrong I had to throw the food out. Others listed dry ingredients but assumed anyone could intuit the amount of wet ingredients to include.

The journey from grandma’s hazy instructions to a precise recipe took all my previous knowledge of basic dough and culinary techniques. My cooking and baking from the age of 12 paid off!

3) Writing up recipes

Each recipe in my cookbooks has three elements: a background story, a precise list of ingredients and a detailed method.

If food is a window into a destination, then a dish without a biography is boring. Writing a culinary biography for each recipe was a treat for me. I knew my readers would appreciate little-known details or anecdotes about their favourite food. And those who had never heard of a particular dish could only feel more tempted to try it.

Early on, I decided that I wanted all the ingredients expressed in metric and Imperial measurements. As a Croatian chef, I always use a kitchen scale and think about the weight of ingredients. But to translate the weight into the volume (cups, tablespoons), I had to measure twice.

I would first weigh the ingredients. Then, I would fit them into cups, tablespoons or teaspoons. It was quite a lengthy process, but it was necessary to be precise.

The method, or the how-to, section is written in a long-form style. I don’t edit down sentences to save space. I want this section to be the equivalent of a cooking workshop where I can casually take you through the process.

Everything is explained in detail, so much so that I even pinpoint possible mistakes. Then, I describe what to do to avoid them. Most of these cooking gems are hiding in a small section called ‘Chef’s tip’ at the end of each recipe.

4) Photographing recipes

Most cookbooks feature only photos of a finished dish. These photos are beautifully presented, showing food and a larger dining setting.

I admire them for the ambience and styling. Still, I choose a different approach for several reasons. My ‘finished dish’ photos are all close-ups, giving you a sense of the food’s colour and texture.

People often tell me that my photos make them drool. I take that as the biggest compliment because the goal of the dish’s feature photo is to make you want to eat it.

Aside from these mouth-watering close-ups, each recipe has how-to pictures. This is the defining quality of my cookbooks. I want you to learn how to and then continue to cook my food.

All how-to photos are taken from the overhead perspective. This means I have a camera attached to a tripod looking down on my hands and the kitchen surface.

I take all these photos myself – which can sometimes be very time-consuming. To have both of my hands in the frame, I use a 10-second timer. Now, multiply this by at least 100 photos taken for each recipe, and you get the hours taken from start to finish.

If a dish takes 2 hours to cook, I need at least double this time to cook and photograph it. Often, it is close to 3 times longer to produce 10 great how-to images.

5) Creating a cooking space

I cook and bake in my kitchen. This is where I feel the intimacy with space and all the objects I need. I could never work in a hired space, no matter how user-friendly or professional it might be.

We all accumulate a special kind of embodied memory when we potter around our space. My hands know where each cooking tool is… each cabinet, drawer and shelf. My utensils have a patina that we created together, and only I know their features and quirks.

All that said, cooking at home is not without challenges. Nikica and I have three pets: two cats and a dog. Švrle, the tom cat, loves to sit on the kitchen counter next to me when I cook. It’s impossible to train him not to do this when I am working on the cookbook.

He jumps up wherever my hands are, so, unfortunately, he needs to spend time in the bedroom alone. The poor fellow can sometimes spend half a day there. My heart breaks when he meows, but I learned my lesson. He doesn’t behave in the kitchen.

Our dog Sunči will move around. She”ll whine for a little treat if the cooking smells are very attractive to her. But, as a dog, she can be trained. She knows how to wait until the photographing is done. Then, she gets her share.

6) Creating a cooking timeline

Each cookbook I wrote went through a similar cycle from start to finish. When it’s dark outside, and my kitchen has little natural light in the winter, I test recipes and write detailed notes.

From March to June, when the sunshine brightens my kitchen, I begin cooking and baking each dish ‘for real’. This means taking photos in the process.

Again, depending on the natural light, I begin at 10 am and finish at about 6 pm. Some days, even in the summer, can turn too dark and cloudy for photographing. I take a break then, but such delays must be factored in carefully.

I have no time to cook lunch when I work on a recipe. So, by the evening, we are starving even though our house is full of food. You’d think that a chef never goes hungry, but after a while, you can’t eat cake or pastry every day.

My happiest moment is when Nikica packs the food into doggy bags and takes them to our friends and neighbours. I think we’re the most beloved residents in our neighbourhood. It’s not only food they get; I know each person’s favourite dish, so I make sure the food is distributed correctly.

7) My favourite anecdotes

Each cookbook brought new friends into my life. I knew that food could make us feel connected and loved. But some stories people shared brought tears to my eyes.

Here are some of them…

One family got separated between London and Bruxelles during the COVID lockdown. Father and son wanted something sweet, so this teenage son made mađarica from my Croatian Desserts cookbook. It was a success from the first go.

Two friends gathered to practice making the strudel they remembered from childhood. It took only one day to stretch perfect phyllo dough in their kitchen.

One woman liked the introductory biographies of each recipe so much that she read them to her daughter. She told me my cookbook was her favourite collection of bedtime stories.

Father and son are learning to cook by challenging each other to prepare something from my Croatian Classics cookbook. I get photos of their lunch daily.

There are many more stories and impressions like these. Have a look at this page dedicated to Croatian Classics.

I want to know your thoughts…

The Croatian Savoury Baking cookbook has extra sections for each recipe only because you, my readers, suggested it. I include times (prep, bake and total time) for each recipe and the tools you need to make it.

I am here to listen if you have any other suggestions for my future cookbooks.

Let me know in the comments below.