Discover the secret to cooking application success. Learn how America’s Test Kitchen app uses UX, trust, personalization, and community to keep users engaged.
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Remember the banana bread craze of 2020? Or the sudden tilt towards sourdough starters? Even though during the pandemic, we spent most of our time at home cooking delicious meals, we converted our kitchens into classrooms, playing fields, and even disaster areas.
And that is where cooking applications became more than nice-to-have. They help users save time in the kitchen.
But not all recipe apps are created equal. Some fizzle out after a quick Google search, while others, like America’s Test Kitchen (ATK), have built digital spaces that feel like having a seasoned chef (or a friendly baker) right there with you.
So, what’s their secret recipe? These cooking applications focus on UX design, personalization, and trust, three ingredients that turn a cookery mobile app into a daily habit. Let’s explore what cooking apps need to do for success and understand what America’s Test Kitchen app did differently to stand out.
What cooking applications need to do for success?
Engaging UI and UX
When you’re elbows deep in flour or handling three pots on the stove, the last thing you want is to fumble through a clunky cookery app. That’s why great cooking apps focus on intuitive UX design. Features like these make the difference between a smooth cooking session and a burnt dinner:
- Step-by-step instructions
- Built-in timers
- Weekly meal planning for home cooks
- Integrated grocery list
- Hands-free voice navigation
- Visual cues and short how-to videos
- Smart scaling of ingredient quantities
- Measurement conversions
- Offline access/downloadable recipes
- Integration with smart speakers or kitchen devices
For example, ATK’s app breaks recipes into clear, digestible steps with visuals and notes on “why it works.” Good UX and usability in the kitchen go a long way.
As Kevin M, a user of America’s Test Kitchen, puts it: “Fantastic recipes, and an app designed by people who understand what it’s like to cook from a recipe using a phone or tablet.”
Interesting stats: For every dollar invested in UX, companies can expect a massive $100 return (a 9,900% ROI), while bad UX can cost companies up to 35% of potential revenue. Consult with your mobile app development company to prioritize UX.
Founders who understand the psychology of story, and pair it with the power of AI tools, are redefining what apps can be. In this article, we’ll explore how worldbuilding tools are fueling the creative edge for product innovators, how to turn them into AI-driven features, and what to look for in the right development partner.
Trust and authority
Anyone can upload an easy recipe online, but does everyone guarantee that it will work? Cooking apps live and die by trust. Beyond recipes, apps that teach techniques and offer tips establish themselves as mentors and are no longer just digital cookbooks. Such apps turn casual users into loyal followers who know they can rely on the app every time they step into the kitchen.
America’s Test Kitchen has spent decades building its reputation on “foolproof, tested” recipes, and that authority translates into their app. Users don’t have to wonder if a cake will collapse or a sauce will separate. ATK has done the trial and error for them. Most users of the app agree that their recipe collection is reliable, easy to follow, and consistently delivers the results they promise.
This is what ATK app users had to say about the app:
Interesting stats: Around 4 in 5 customers need to trust a brand to consider buying from it.
Personalization
Whether you’re shopping on Amazon or searching for recipes or desserts, personalization holds the key.
Cooks today want more than a recipe dump. They want apps that actually fit their lives. Their app offers options to filter recipes for gluten-free or vegan diets, suggesting easy wins for beginners, or throwing in a challenge for the seasoned home chef.
Some apps hand you recipes and help you plan out the whole week. You can cook the same dish for a family dinner or scale it down when cooking for yourself. When you run out of an ingredient, they suggest a quick alternative. Over time, the app understands your habits, such as your consistent preference for pasta or your recent shift toward dairy-free options. Before long, it feels less like scrolling through a database and more like having a friend in the kitchen who knows your style.
This customization converts a kitchen cooking app from a convenient tool into a culinary companion that users want to keep coming back to.
The ATK app takes another approach by offering cooking lessons and how-tos alongside the most popular recipes, so users can choose content that matches their skill level.
Interesting stats: 72% of users will engage with only personalized messaging in your mobile apps.
Instead of creating a fantasy realm, founders now use worldbuilding structures to craft personalized user journeys, modular content blocks, and branching logic that reacts dynamically to user input. Platforms like Summon Worlds use AI-driven narrative scaffolding to help authors structure their fictional universes, and that same logic can be applied to how users navigate digital products.
In short, a worldbuilding tool in a product context is a system that lets founders:
- Define the internal logic of an app or platform
- Create consistent narrative layers that evolve with the user
- Use modular storytelling for onboarding, gamification, and retention
This shift is about treating the app not as a static tool, but as a living world that the user steps into, where their actions shape the experience.
Community engagement
Food is social in nature, and the best app for recipes by ingredients recreates that sense of community. People are eager to cook by themselves, but also to exchange tips, troubleshoot disasters, and share victories. For this reason, cooking apps need features like comment threads, ratings, and sharing baking recipes and others for cooking inspiration.
Many apps allow users to post photos of their completed dishes, creating a gallery of inspiration (and occasionally a reality-check on how a recipe actually looks outside of studio lighting).
Discussion forums and question and answer spaces provide home cooks with a community where they can share their tips, such as: How long did your dough take to rise? What can I use to replace buttermilk? Many platforms offer bake-alongs or seasonal challenges that bring a feeling of community and keep the users involved.
Interesting stats: More than 66% of companies with branded communities witnessed an increase in customer retention.
How OpenForge helped America’s Test Kitchen (ATK) transform its UX?
ATK is a great app aimed at simplifying cooking. OpenForge stepped in as their mobile app development partner to overhaul the design so that recipes, videos, and tips were simpler to find, follow, and enjoy on phones and tablets. They introduced features like smart filtering for dietary needs and skill levels, personalized collections for saving favorites, and seamless video playback that actually works in a busy kitchen. Performance upgrades meant faster load times and smoother navigation.
Users could jump from prep to plating without frustration. As a result, monthly app sessions tripled, support tickets dropped by a quarter, and 95% of users gave the experience a thumbs up. In other words, a thoughtful redesign by OpenForge turned ATK’s app into what every cook wants: a reliable kitchen companion.
Read the case study here
What other cooking apps can learn from OpenForge’s success?
Blend trust + community + personalization
User hates a mystery-meat recipe from a sketchy source. Successful apps like the one OpenForge built earn trust with reliable recipes, build loyalty through community spaces, and keep users coming back by personalizing suggestions to their tastes.
Invest in UX
If your Android app makes someone scroll with dough-covered hands, you’ve already lost them, probably forever. Clean navigation, bold step-by-step layouts, and hands-free modes turn chaos into calm.
Use multimedia
A quick video on how to fold egg whites or a voice prompt reminding you to flip the steak is worth more than three paragraphs of instructions. Using multimedia is a survival in a messy kitchen.
Encourage user-generated content
Recipe ratings, tweaks, and photos from actual users give your app authenticity. Plus, nothing’s more reassuring than seeing a hundred other people make the same dish. It serves as an assurance that even your recipe can turn out to be great.
Offer multi-platform accessibility
Whether your user is on their phone, tablet, laptop, or asking their smart speaker what’s for dinner, your app should be right there with them. Accessibility encourages your customers to come back to your app again and again. OpenForge develops iOS apps and iconic apps that users love to come back to.
Frequently Asked Questions
America’s Test Kitchen app is the best cookery app because of its foolproof recipes, trusted expertise, and user-friendly design that makes cooking feel effortless. As the app delivers results, you reduce food waste.
An app like America’s Test Kitchen offers a vast library of trusted, tested recipes in one place.
A good food cooking app combines reliable recipes, easy navigation, and helpful features like timers and meal planning.
SuperCook or ATK are apps that give you recipes based on what you have. You have to enter the ingredients, and the app instantly suggests recipes you can make.
Apps that combine outstanding recipes, cooking tips, and provide access to food groups in a single convenient location are considered the most suitable apps for foodies.
Cooking apps that teach and connect
The recipe for cooking app success is a balance of trust, usability, personalization, and community. America’s Test Kitchen app shows that when apps pair foolproof content with thoughtful design, they become companions in the kitchen. And when forward-thinking partners like OpenForge step in to refine UX and performance, the results surpass expectations.
To the cooking/recipe app builder, the message is clear: create an experience that people can rely on, make that experience simple to use in the real messy kitchen, make it taste more like them, and finally provide a place where they can share their experience of cooking.
Do that, and you move from being “just another cooking app” to being the tool users reach for every single day. Schedule a call with us to learn how to create cooking applications that stand out in the app store.
