Babette Pepaj’s mission is to inspire and connect people through food, technology and shared experiences. The founder of the BakeSpace.com community, Pepaj’s most recent endeavor is BakeBot.ai. The free AI-powered cooking assistant generates recipes, digitizes family favorites and suggests ingredient swaps.
“It helps you do everything from thinking about what foods you’re going to buy to seeing what’s in the fridge [and figuring] out what you can make with what you already have on hand,” Pepaj told the Journal. It can also walk you through preparing recipes in real time with its voice. “I don’t have to look at my screen or wash my hands continuously,” she said. “It just talks to me like a friend in the kitchen.”
Pepaj, who has been in the food space since launching BakeSpace in 2006, has seen the evolution of how home cooks share recipes over the years. “I had thought I saw it all until I saw AI and I was like, ‘Wow, this isn’t just about making a new recipe, this is about actually helping someone at the most important moment of cooking,” she said.
For instance, if you accidentally put in the flour in the wrong order or need a substitution in the middle of cooking, you can ask how to fix it.
Social media has also had a huge influence on recipe discovery.
“It’s exciting to see all the different [viral recipes] on every single platform, so you can find your tribe no matter where you are and what type of food you’d like to make,” she said. “Then you can drill down [and] follow people and see what else they’ve made; it’s kind of like a living cookbook.”
It’s easy to collect screenshots or to bookmark recipes and ideas.
“I’ve saved a thousand recipes,” she said. “The problem is finding those recipes later, but luckily BakeBot can do that for you.” BakeBot also helps you rescue, modify or update any recipe. This is particularly important as we approach any holiday. “Lots of us have old recipe books [passed down through generations or] binders that have cutouts of recipes,” she said.
However, many of these recipes have faded or missing ingredients or instructions. For instance, it’s got the front but not the back of a recipe card or there is an ingredient in the instructions that is not listed in the ingredients list with a quantity.
If you are the person who has been making that recipe for years, it’s not a problem. But what about everyone else? “That was actually the inspiration for starting BakeBot; I went to Pinterest and I saw all these comments saying [this or that recipe is] missing this ingredient,” Pepaj said. “Because [community] recipes are user generated — they’re from home cooks — they’re not writing it like a professional cookbook author [who] makes sure that everything matches up.”
The magic of AI is it can look at a recipe, see if something’s missing and then be able to modify it. It’s also great for modifications (adapting it for a different number of servings) and substitutions.
“For example, you might have a recipe that’s [been] in your family and all of a sudden your sister-in-law is gluten free [or] maybe you became vegan,” she said. “You want to keep it within the same style, you want to make sure it has the same flavors.” She added, “When people are preparing … especially anything that’s holiday related, anything that’s truly memorable, anything that has history and tradition, you don’t want to mess up.”
Pepaj believes that AI is great at starting a conversation, so it can help you with whatever you are trying to achieve. “Are you trying to get a new recipe, are you trying to change something and modify it or are you trying to learn something?” she said. Once you open up and you say something like, ‘Hey, I’m really nervous … I want to impress my mother-in-law. What can I do to really kick this out of the park?’ it can guide you to a solution.
When Pepaj asked BakeBot.ai for recipe ideas for the upcoming holiday, it gave her several ideas, including one for Rosh Hashanah cupcakes with apple butter cream. BakeBot’s recipe is below.
Try out at Bakebot.ai and explore Bakespace.com.
Rosh Hashanah Cupcakes with Apple Buttercream
Prep Time: 20 Minutes
Cook Time: 20 Minutes
Serves 12
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup honey
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened (for frosting)
2 cups powdered sugar (for frosting)
1/4 cup apple butter (for frosting)
1 1/2 Tbsp milk (for frosting)
Extra honey (for drizzling)
Instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C). Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger and salt.
- In a large bowl, whisk honey, sugar, eggs, oil, applesauce and vanilla until smooth.
- Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients in two additions, alternating with milk, mixing until just combined.
- Divide batter evenly among cupcake liners, filling about 2/3 full.
- Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Cool cupcakes completely before frosting.
- For frosting: Beat butter until creamy. Add powdered sugar, apple butter, and 1 tbsp milk. Beat until fluffy, adding more milk if needed for consistency.
- Pipe or spread frosting onto cooled cupcakes. Drizzle with honey before serving.
Note: You can make the cupcakes a day ahead and frost before serving for the best texture.
Debra Eckerling is a writer for the Jewish Journal and the host of “Taste Buds with Deb.” Subscribe on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform. Email Debra: tastebuds@jewishjournal.com.
