Cook for Befana

What makes a Befana recipe

• Amounts live in the steps. Write the steps the way you cook them. The builder links each ingredient to the step that uses it, so a cook reads “Whisk 2 cups flour with 1 tsp salt” right where they need it, and the amounts change when they scale the recipe or switch to metric. Every ingredient should show up in a step; the builder tells you if one doesn't.
• Servings or what it makes, like “4 servings” or “24 cookies”.
• Prep and cook time in minutes, your honest estimate.
• Tags for the meal (dinner, breakfast, side, soup, salad, dessert, baking), the cuisine (Mexican, Thai, Italian), and the diet when it fits (vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free).
• Timers on steps where you wait: “Simmer 20 minutes” gets a 20-minute timer. The builder adds them when a step names a time; check that each one is right.
• A one-line summary of what makes it good. A chef's note (what makes it yours) and short step tips (“The batter should look lumpy”) are optional and welcome.

Photos

• A real photo of your own cooking: the finished dish, made by you from this recipe. No photos from other sites, books or packages.
• Daylight, sharp, and big enough: at least 1,200 pixels on the long side and 900 on the short side. Any phone photo taken by a window works. JPG, PNG, WebP or HEIC, up to 25 MB, not taller than twice its width or wider than twice its height.
• Just the food. No watermarks, text or logos on the picture. We remove location and camera details from every photo.
• No photo yet? Befana can draw a placeholder picture of the dish so the recipe isn't blank. It's always labeled “Illustration, not a photo of this dish,” your photo replaces it any time, and it doesn't count toward the launch library: only a real photo does.

If a photo doesn't meet the standard, the upload tells you what to change, like “too small” or “too dark”.

What “tested” means

You cooked the recipe yourself at least once, start to finish, following what you wrote, and noted how long it took. When you publish (or later, from Edit on the recipe), tick I cooked this and timed it and enter the minutes.

• The recipe shows “Tested by the cook” with your time.
• Your time counts as the first real cook, so everyone gets a better idea of how long it really takes.
• Only tick it for a cook you did. Your word is the test.

How you're credited

• Every recipe you add shows your name, linked to your public cook page, which lists your public recipes.
• You choose the name, photo, a few lines about you and your links in Settings; only your name and recipes show until you turn the rest on.
• Your recipes stay yours to edit, and every edit keeps the earlier version.
• Other cooks can save their own version of a recipe; a version always credits and links back to yours.

Your rights

In short, from our terms of use:

• You keep ownership of the recipes, photos and notes you publish.
• You give Befana permission to host, show, scale, convert, print and share them on Befana and through its API and assistant tools, for as long as they're on Befana.
• Only publish what's yours to share: your own photos and your own words.

The terms are what count; this is a summary. Questions: support@befana.app.

How to send your recipes

1. Sign in with Apple or Google. It's free.
2. Open Add a recipe and paste the recipe as you have it (a note, a text, a blog post), paste a link to it, or upload a photo or PDF of a recipe card. Befana sorts out the amounts, steps and timers and opens the recipe, ready to cook. Spot something off? Tap Edit and fix it right on the page.
3. Rather fill in the fields yourself? Choose Type it in instead.
4. Add your photo, and tick I cooked this and timed it once you have.

A box of recipe cards or a PDF? Email them to support@befana.app and tell us the email you'll sign in with. We'll import them for you, and they'll be waiting in your kitchen the first time you sign in, credited to you. Then add photos and mark the ones you've cooked as tested.

You can also add recipes from Claude or ChatGPT: connect Befana to your assistant and paste one in.

What happens next

Before launch, someone at Befana looks over each recipe: its quality score, the photo and the step tags. We either approve it or send it back with specific fixes, which you'll see on the recipe and in My Kitchen. Make them and we'll look again.

Add a recipe