Create a recipe
How a recipe is born in AreaCacao and where it's saved so you can keep editing it.
Goal
Understand where the recipes in My recipes come from and how to save one so you can keep working on it.
The "What do you want to formulate?" selector
When you click New recipe (either from the Create button in the sidebar or from the New recipe button at the top of the /recipes listing), a selector opens with the title What do you want to formulate? It offers three ways to start:
Recipe from scratch
Start with a blank sheet. Give it a name and open the editor to search for ingredients and add them one by one, with full creative freedom.
Filling formulator
Ganaches, caramels, pâte de fruit, and more. The assistant calculates quantities, macros, and the balance for you.
Chocolate formulator
Set the cocoa % and the fluidity you want; the assistant calculates the formulation for your couverture.
The last two options (fillings and chocolates) are AI-assisted: the selector groups them under the AI-assisted label. The first one, Recipe from scratch, is manual.
If you don't have any recipes yet, the /recipes listing shows three cards instead: From scratch (its Open the editor button creates the blank recipe right away, with the suggested name and without going through the selector), Formulate (Choose a formulator opens the What do you want to formulate? selector) and Import (Import a recipe takes you to /import-recipe).
Importing a recipe is separate from the selector. To bring in a recipe you already have written down (a photo, a PDF, some text or a spreadsheet) and have the app transcribe it, use the AI import button on the /recipes listing (see Import recipes).
Typical steps
Open the selector and choose your path
Click New recipe (in the sidebar or on the /recipes listing). In the What do you want to formulate? selector, pick one of the three options for your product.
Create the formula
- Recipe from scratch: the Recipe name field is pre-filled with a suggested name like New Recipe [date] at [time]; change it if you want and click Create recipe. The editor opens with a blank recipe (you can always rename it later).
- Filling formulator / Chocolate formulator: the selector takes you to the matching formulator, where you define what you want and save the formula as a recipe.
Edit it in the recipe editor
The recipe lands in /recipes. Open it to enter the editor (/validation?id=<id>), where you adjust ingredients, preparation, costs, and yield. There's no Save button in the editor: it uses autosave (see Recipe editor).
Expected result
The recipe shows up in /recipes with its name, its type, the number of items, and the total weight. Any change you make later in the editor is saved automatically.
Duplicate names
AreaCacao won't let you overwrite a recipe just because it shares a name with another one. The behavior depends on whether the app sets the name or you type it:
- When you formulate (Fillings and Chocolates), the recipe saves itself with an auto-assigned name. If that name already exists in your account, the app adds an automatic differentiator: first the date,
(dd/MM)(for example Raspberry ganache (13/06)); if that one is taken too, the date and time,(dd/MM HH:mm)(Raspberry ganache (13/06 09:42)); and if that is taken as well, a number,(2),(3)… You'll see the note Saved as “…” with the final name. - When you create from scratch, the suggested name carries the date and time, so it rarely clashes. If you type one you already have, the recipe isn't created and the app tells you: "You already have a recipe with that name. Choose another name."
- When you rename a recipe by hand in the editor to a name you already have, leaving the field shows the notice You already have a recipe with that name under the name, with a Use “…” button that applies the differentiated name the app suggests. If you don't click it, the repeated name stays saved: you can leave it or change it yourself.
The comparison ignores case and extra spaces, and only looks at your live recipes (deleted ones don't count). The differentiator never stacks: if you rename a recipe that already carried a (dd/MM), the app strips it before proposing a new one.