MasterCook Deluxe Reviewer's Comments

MasterCook Deluxe is the “TopTenREVIEWS Silver Award” winner for its appealing cookbook structure, creative range of recipe groupings, and extras not found in any other cookbook and recipe organizing software. If you want to design your own cookbook and don’t want to start from scratch, this is the software for you. MasterCook’s bonus features like the Wine List are useful and easy-to-use. 

MasterCook Deluxe Screenshots. Click for more
       


Ease of Use:  

The program is easy to use. The navigation icons on the right side are difficult to interpret—scroll over for the description. It was impossible to find a Home button or any other way to return to the home page. The search, email and print functions work flawlessly. 

Recipe Manager:  

Easily search the cookbooks in a number of ways. Use filters to search by:

• Preparation time
• Start to finish time
• Ingredients to include or exclude in the recipe
• Keyword or multiple keywords
• Nutritional needs such as low carbohydrates, low sodium, low fat or kosher

MasterCook Deluxe makes customization easy. Add your own recipes, directions, photos, important notes, preparation time, nutritional value and ratings to any of the recipes. My Cookbook is the book set aside for your own recipes—up to 12,000—but it can be easily broken down into separate volumes. All of the recipes include nutritional values. Click on the heart icon in each recipe and you'll have all the health facts. Categorize a recipe across 12 categories to make searches more productive:

Condiment • Appetizer • Beverage • Bread • Breakfast • Dessert • Main Dish • Salad• Sandwich • Side Dish • Snack • Soup

And, it’s easy to add your own categories. 

Menu Planner:  

The MasterCook menu planner can help you plan breakfasts, lunches and dinners for an entire week. A drag and drop option would make this process easier. Once you have your plan, this program will generate a shopping list and even track the food you currently have in your pantry. If you don't feel like shopping, the software will produce a list of recipes that you can make with the food you have on-hand.The shopping list will group your products by area in which they are usually found in the grocery store. The only thing this list won't do is automatically estimate prices. You'll have to manually enter the correct price the first time you enter a product into the system. After that, MasterCook will use that price to calculate the cost. 

Feature Set:  

The recipes are organized into 30 attractive cookbooks, which is useful and engaging. In addition to the standard fare, MasterCook Deluxe offers Weekend Gourmet, Food for 50, and Cooking with Gadgets. The recipes come from manufacturers and national food councils. Only about 20% of the recipes have pictures.

MasterCook Deluxe makes it easy to:

• Input recipes with confidence using MasterCook’s spell checker and glossary. The glossary provides cooking term definitions     and tips to cook like a pro.
• Analyze both the cost and nutrition value of each recipe by serving.
• Print a recipe, a meal plan, shopping lists, or an entire cookbook.
• Email your favorite recipes to your friends and family.

Bonus Features

• A one-click substitution button delivers appropriate substitutes like cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg for allspice. No baking chocolate on hand? MasterCook gives you four options including cocoa and the other ingredients to make the equivalent of the chocolate bar.
• MasterCook has an integrated page layout program with a large selection of templates that match the various cookbooks. You can also print on recipe cards. This program gives you by far the best tools for sharing printed recipes. and text
• Large print format available for sharing recipes
• Embedded Wine List where you can keep track of your wine inventory and record information like where and when you bought it and tasting notes.  

Ease of Installation:  

Installation was quick and problem free. 

Help/Support:  

MasterCook Deluxe has a FAQs section, manuals, tips, email and even a user forum on Yahoo Groups. Customer support answers emails within two or three business days. 

Summary:  

MasterCook Deluxe is a great product for those that want a very simple-to-use cookbook and recipe program for a great price. It comes with 8,000 recipes and there is plenty of room to add your own.