I am deep into recipe development right now, sometimes creating up to 4 or 5 recipes in one day. My first step was making the scary decision to take my laptop into the kitchen. I was talked into it by my friend Pam of Project Foodie. Of course, Pam has a more modern kitchen than I do. Mine is circa 1920 and has no built in counters. I don't work as "clean" as I should in the kitchen so I fear gunking up my keyboard with whatever I'm cooking! Maybe this will force me to be a bit less messy. I have begun wearing an apron in the kitchen and slipping a kitchen towel through the apron strings.
My real working space is a very cramped and crowded butcher block island. I also have various improvised spaces and a tiny little cutting board that slides out from a cabinet. I have always used it as a place to hold whatever cookbooks I was cooking out of at the moment, sometimes stacking up two or three on top of each other. Using print-outs of recipes from my computer was problematic because the ink always smeared as ingredients dripped onto them. Also my printer died earlier this week, with any luck the new one will show up today. It's a laser printer so perhaps I'll have less ink issues.
My recipes usually start out as just a list of ingredients. I come up with the amounts as I go and fill them in, and after tasting often add an ingredient or go back and recalculate the amounts.
How about you? Any tips? What's your process for creating recipes in the kitchen?
Interested in hiring me to do recipe development? Check out my web site for more information and links to recipes I have developed for clients.