Why the Best Thermomix Cookbooks Aren’t Always on Cookidoo

Are the Best Thermomix Cookbooks on Cookidoo?

It is easy: simply choose a recipe, follow the instructions, press Next.

Add the ingredient, press Next.

Turn the dial, press Next.

Dinner is done, and no effort or thought is involved.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Some nights that is exactly what I want too.

But I don't think Cookidoo should be the beginning and the end of cooking with a Thermomix.

There is a whole world of Thermomix recipes outside Cookidoo, created by passionate independent recipe developers who have spent years developing recipes in the particular areas they love. Some specialise in family food, some in plant-based cooking, some in baking, sourdough or wholefoods, and others become almost obsessive about a particular cuisine.

I understand the obsession.

I have been known to choose a holiday according to what I want to eat.

I travel, take cooking classes, try different versions of the same dish and come home determined to work out how to make those flavours in my Thermomix. That is how my Indian, Asian and Tex-Mex cookbooks came about. If you want to know more, take a look at my About Me page

So when someone asks me where to find the best Thermomix cookbooks, I don't automatically look for the biggest recipe collection.

I ask the person who they are cooking for, and what they like to eat.

Spoiler Alert: At the end of the article, I share my favourite Thermomix Cookbooks & Authors.

Cookidoo gives Thermomix owners convenience.

You can search for something you feel like eating, choose the recipe, send it to your Thermomix and follow Guided Cooking step by step.

Particularly when you're new to the Thermomix, that removes a lot of uncertainty.

You don't need to know what speed to use or how hot the bowl should be. You don't need to work out how long to sauté an onion. The only thing you do is press next.

But there is a difference between successfully following a Thermomix recipe and actually understanding how to cook with your Thermomix.

If every recipe you make is Guided Cooking, it is very easy to stay in that cycle of:

Do what the screen says. Press Next. Repeat.

You may have made hundreds of meals in your Thermomix without really knowing why it used Speed 4 for one task, reverse for another or 120°C instead of 100°C.

And that is where I think good Thermomix cookbooks still have a very important place.

The Best Thermomix Cookbooks Teach You More

The best cookbook authors don't just give you instructions.

They teach you something. The first big difference is you take over the controls and tap manual mode!

Perhaps the author knows Indian cooking inside out and can explain why the spices are treated in a particular order.

Perhaps they understand plant-based food well enough to create meals that are genuinely satisfying instead of simply removing the meat from an existing recipe.

Perhaps they have spent years working on sourdough and know all those tiny details that stop you staring suspiciously at a jar of starter wondering whether it is alive, dead or planning to take over the kitchen.

That depth matters.

The best Thermomix cookbook is a curated collection. The author has decided what belongs in the book, tested the recipes, refined them and hopefully explained enough along the way that you become a better cook by using it.

That is very different from searching an enormous database and choosing one recipe from thousands.

Neither is wrong.

They simply do different jobs.

I think we sometimes forget how many passionate independent recipe developers there are creating incredible food for Thermomix owners.

These aren't anonymous recipes appearing from nowhere.

There are people spending days testing one recipe because the texture isn't quite right. Making it again because it needs a little more spice. Changing the method because the first version worked beautifully in their kitchen but didn't work consistently enough for everybody else.

Then they make it again.

And again.

Recipe developers tend to be slightly obsessive people.

I say that affectionately because I am one.

The wonderful thing is that most independent developers eventually develop their own niche. You get to know their style, their flavours and the type of recipes they do particularly well.

If you cook a few of someone's recipes and keep thinking, Oh, I like the way this person cooks, their cookbook is probably going to be far more useful to you than choosing a book simply because it contains a lot of recipes.

That is one of the reasons I wanted my Thermomix cookbook guide to include books written by other authors as well as my own.

I don't need to be the best person to teach you everything.

Nobody is.

If somebody else knows their particular niche better than I do, I am very happy to send you in their direction.

This is the part I wish more Thermomix owners discovered.

Once you start cooking recipes manually, you begin to understand your machine.

At first you may still be following a cookbook exactly.

Speed 4.

Five seconds.

Scrape the bowl.

120°C.

Eight minutes.

Reverse.

But eventually those instructions start to mean something.

You know what Speed 4 is likely to do before you turn the dial.

You recognise when something needs reverse because you want it stirred rather than chopped.

You start understanding which jobs the Thermomix can quietly do for you while you get on with something else.

And then one day you realise you don't actually need a Thermomix recipe at all.

You have a recipe you already love.

Perhaps it came from your mother, your grandmother, an old cookbook or a scrap of paper that has been in the kitchen drawer for twenty years.

And you start thinking:

I could do that bit in the Thermomix.

That is when I say you have started going rogue.

And I thoroughly encourage it.

Your Favourite Recipes Don't Have to Disappear

Buying a Thermomix shouldn't mean abandoning all the food you already love and replacing it with whatever happens to be available on Cookidoo.

Quite the opposite.

Once you understand manual cooking, you can start adapting your favourite recipes to the Thermomix.

Maybe the original recipe tells you to finely chop an onion.

Easy.

Halve the onion, place it into the Thermomix bowl and select 4 sec/Speed 5. You will know that because the last manual recipe you followed to chop onion asked you to select those settings.

Maybe your favourite non Thermomix recipe wants you to stand at the stove sautéing it.

The Thermomix can do that too. Because you are becoming familiar with manual mode, you are also confident to do that step.

Then perhaps you need to add tomatoes and stand over the saucepan stirring the sauce for the next twenty minutes.

Why?

Let the Thermomix stir it.

That, to me, is where the machine becomes really valuable.

I don't want my Thermomix deciding what my family eats.

I want it doing the boring jobs involved in making the food we already want to eat.

If I can make my favourite Easy Chicken Curry, Chinese chicken and Sweet Corn Soup, Pesto Sauce, custard or family recipe and avoid standing over a saucepan stirring it, that is a win.

That is how you really start getting the most out of your Thermomix.

Cookbooks Can Give You Confidence to Start Adapting Recipes

There is a nice little stage between Guided Cooking and completely making things up as you go along.

Cookbooks.

The best Thermomix cookbooks give you a safety net while you learn.

Someone else has already worked out the time, temperature and speed, but you are the one entering those settings.

That sounds like a tiny difference.

It isn't.

Instead of blindly pressing Next, you begin making the connection between the food in the bowl and the settings you are choosing.

Eventually you can look at an ordinary recipe and start translating it yourself.

That is a skill worth learning because suddenly your potential recipe collection becomes enormous.

You don't have to search Cookidoo for a recipe that's similar to one your grandmother made.

Now your thinking becomes, what part of Grans recipe can I get the Thermomix to do to make things easier?

That is when you have really opened up everything Thermomix can do for you.

No.

And Cookidoo isn't better than Thermomix cookbooks either.

I don't think they need to compete.

I use both.

Cookidoo is fantastic when I want Guided Cooking, convenience or inspiration from a huge recipe library.

Cookbooks are what I reach for when I want to learn from a particular author, explore a cuisine properly, understand a process or cook something that isn't necessarily sitting on the Thermomix screen.

And manual mode is where you will find me just about all the time. Because even when I am following a Cookidoo recipe, I tend to go "off script".

Use Cookidoo when my brain is fried, and I just need to eat.

I learn new styles of eating and cooking from talented cookbook authors.

But I am at my most creative when I am experimenting in manual mode. That is where I feel the joy of cooking and creating.

So get comfortable with Cookidoo, learn from Cookbooks in manual mode.

There are some wonderful independent Thermomix cookbook authors producing books for very different types of cooks, and I don't think you need a bookshelf containing every one of them.

You need the books that suit you.

I have put together a separate guide to the Thermomix cookbooks I genuinely think are worth owning, including my favourite books for family cooking, plant-based food, children's wholefood nutrition, world flavours and learning particular cooking processes.

Some are my books. Some aren't.

That is exactly how I think a recommendation should work.

Choose the author whose food excites you, learn everything you can from them and then take those skills back to your Thermomix.

Before long, you may find yourself going a little rogue too.