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Using cook mode
Part of A La Carte Plus: a full-screen, step-by-step view for actually cooking — with timers that keep running in the background and an ingredient checklist.
Entering Cook Mode
Cook Mode is part of A La Carte Plus. Open any recipe and tap the orange 'Cook' button in the bar at the bottom of the recipe. Each instruction takes the full screen, with a checklist of the ingredients used in that step and a timer for any duration the step mentions.
Set your servings before you start — scaling adjusts the amounts inside the instructions, so the steps stay correct.
Moving between steps
Swipe left and right, or tap Back and Next in the bar at the bottom. The pills at the top show progress.
Your phone stays awake the whole time Cook Mode is open, so you aren't fighting the lock screen with wet hands. Closing the recipe ends the session.
Timer and ingredient checklist
When a step mentions a duration — 'simmer for 20 minutes' — a timer for that length appears in the step header. Tap to start, tap again to pause.
Timers run on real clock time, so they keep counting correctly if you leave the app or lock the phone. When one finishes you get a sound and a notification, and tapping the notification takes you back to the step it belongs to and clears the alert.
While a timer is running with the phone locked, the countdown stays on the lock screen — a live notification on Android, a Live Activity on iOS — so you can check it without unlocking. On Android the screen also lights up for a moment when the timer goes off.
If you don't respond, the alert repeats every half-minute or so for about two minutes. To silence it without unlocking, use the Stop button: it sits right on the alert on Android and on the iOS lock-screen card; on a plain iOS notification, press and hold it to reveal Stop. Stop silences the alarm and cancels the remaining reminders, so nothing rings again for that timer.
Tap an ingredient to mark it added. Marks persist across steps for the whole session.