Cooking for Blockheads

Overview

Cooking for Blockheads solves one of the biggest headaches in modded Minecraft: figuring out what food you can actually make with the ingredients you have. The mod adds a Recipe Book item and a full multiblock kitchen system that scans every food recipe in your modpack, checks your available ingredients, and lets you craft or cook food with a single click. You can browse all items this mod adds and their recipes using the tabs at the top of this page.

The mod doesn't add any food items of its own. Instead, it works with every food mod in your pack, including Pam's HarvestCraft, Farmer's Delight, and vanilla Minecraft recipes. The core source code includes a FoodRegistry system that scans all crafting recipes (shaped, shapeless, and Ore Dictionary variants) plus all furnace smelting recipes to find anything that produces an edible item. It even has built-in compatibility for Pam's HarvestCraft tools like the Cutting Board, Pot, Skillet, Saucepan, Bakeware, Mortar and Pestle, Mixing Bowl, and Juicer, treating them as reusable tools rather than consumed ingredients.

The Recipe Book System

The Recipe Book is the portable version of the kitchen system, and it's the first thing you should craft. The mod includes three tiers of books, each with different capabilities.

Cooking for Blockheads I (Recipe Viewer)

The basic book is crafted by smelting a regular Book in a Furnace. When you right-click it, it opens a GUI showing all food recipes you can make with items currently in your inventory. The display uses a 12-slot grid (4 rows of 3) showing available food items, with a 3x3 crafting preview on the left side. Clicking a recipe shows the exact ingredients and arrangement needed. This book is view-only, meaning you still need to manually craft the food yourself.

Cooking for Blockheads II (Portable Crafting)

The upgraded book is crafted by combining the first book with two Diamonds and two Crafting Tables. This version not only shows available recipes but can actually craft the food directly from your inventory with a single click. This is extremely useful when you're out exploring and want to cook up food on the go without setting up a full kitchen.

No Filter Book (Complete Reference)

The third book is crafted by placing the first book alone in a Crafting Table. Unlike the other two, this book shows every food recipe in your entire modpack regardless of whether you have the ingredients. It's a complete recipe reference, perfect for planning what ingredients you need to gather.

The Multiblock Kitchen

The real power of Cooking for Blockheads comes from building a connected kitchen. Every kitchen block placed adjacent to another kitchen block (including diagonally through Kitchen Floor tiles) becomes part of a single multiblock structure. The Cooking Table at the center can access the inventories of every connected block, meaning you can store ingredients in Fridges, Cabinets, Counters, and Fruit Baskets throughout your kitchen and craft from one location.

Kitchen Floor

The Kitchen Floor is the secret to building spacious kitchens. It acts as a connector tile, linking kitchen blocks that aren't directly adjacent. Without it, you'd need an unbroken chain of counters and appliances. With the floor, you can have a Fridge on one wall and an Oven across the room, and the Cooking Table will still access both. Kitchen Floor tiles can be dyed into various colors, and the classic black-and-white checkered pattern is a popular choice.

Cooking Table

The Cooking Table is the heart of your kitchen. It functions like the Cooking for Blockheads II book, but instead of pulling from your personal inventory, it pulls from every connected kitchen block. Open it to see all food recipes available with your stored ingredients. Click a recipe to preview its crafting grid, click again to craft. If a recipe requires smelting, the Cooking Table automatically sends the item to a connected Oven. You can queue up multiple items at once for batch cooking.

Storage Blocks

The mod provides several storage options that all connect to the kitchen multiblock. The Fridge is a large double-tall storage container that opens with a satisfying door animation. Kitchen Cabinets mount on walls above counters and provide upper storage. Kitchen Counters serve as both workspace and storage beneath. The Fruit Basket is a decorative bowl that visually displays the food items placed inside. The Spice Rack mounts on walls and displays stored items like a shelf. All of these blocks make their inventories available to the Cooking Table when connected.

Kitchen Appliances

The Oven

The Oven handles all smelting-based food recipes. Load it with Coal (or any furnace fuel) and it will cook items sent from the Cooking Table. Unlike a regular Furnace, the Oven can process multiple items simultaneously and displays a fire animation when active. If you're using a tech mod like Mekanism, you can apply a Heating Unit upgrade to power the Oven with RF/FE energy instead of fuel, eliminating the need for Coal entirely. The Oven also has top-facing tool slots where Pam's HarvestCraft tools like Skillets, Saucepans, and Bakeware visually sit on the stovetop.

The Sink

The Sink provides unlimited Water to any recipe that requires it. This is one of the most useful blocks in the mod because many food recipes (soups, stews, teas, juices) call for a Water Bucket as an ingredient. With a connected Sink, you never need to carry Water Buckets to your kitchen. The Sink also functions as an infinite water source block, making it popular in modpacks for piping water to other machines and contraptions.

The Toaster

A small appliance dedicated to making Toast from Bread. Place it in your kitchen for quick bread toasting. It's a simple, decorative block that adds a touch of realism to your kitchen setup.

Tool Rack

The Tool Rack is a wall-mounted block that holds cooking tools from mods like Pam's HarvestCraft. Place Rolling Pins, Mixing Bowls, Juicers, Grinders, and other tools on the rack, and they become available to the entire kitchen. Any recipe requiring one of these tools will light up in the Cooking Table once the tool is on a connected Tool Rack. The rack displays the tools visually on its surface.

The Cow in a Jar

One of the mod's most charming features is the Cow in a Jar, which provides a passive, automated supply of Milk for your kitchen. To create one, you'll need a Milk Jar (an empty glass jar block), a live Cow, and an Anvil. Place the Milk Jar on the ground, lure or push a Cow directly on top of it, and then drop an Anvil onto the Cow from above. The Cow gets "squished" into the jar, creating a Cow in a Jar that slowly produces Milk over time.

The jar visually fills with Milk as the Cow produces it. Place it in your connected kitchen and the Cooking Table will automatically use the Milk for any recipe that requires it. This eliminates the need to manually milk Cows with Buckets. You can also use a regular Milk Jar without the cow and fill it manually or with pipes from other mods, but the Cow in a Jar is the hands-free solution.

Kitchen Upgrades

Three upgrade items let you enhance your kitchen appliances. Upgrades are applied by shift-right-clicking them onto the target block.

Heating Unit

Applied to the Oven, the Heating Unit allows it to run on RF/FE energy instead of Coal. This is only useful if you have a tech mod installed that generates power (Mekanism, Thermal Expansion, Immersive Engineering, etc.). Connect a power cable or energy cell to the Oven and it will draw energy automatically. This saves you from constantly refueling with Coal.

Ice Unit

Applied to the Fridge, the Ice Unit automatically provides Snow and Ice to recipes that require them. This is particularly useful for dessert recipes in food mods, such as Ice Cream or frozen treats. Without this upgrade, you'd need to manually store Snow and Ice in your kitchen.

Preservation Chamber

Applied to the Fridge or any storage block, the Preservation Chamber prevents the last item in each slot from being consumed by recipes. This keeps your storage organized by ensuring you always have at least one of each ingredient visible in the container. If you have three Garlic cloves in a slot and craft something that uses two, the Preservation Chamber ensures the last one stays. You may need to apply this upgrade individually to each storage block you want protected.

Pam's HarvestCraft Integration

Cooking for Blockheads was designed with Pam's HarvestCraft in mind, and the two mods complement each other perfectly. Pam's adds hundreds of food items and recipes, which can be overwhelming to track manually. The Cooking Table and Recipe Books make navigating that massive recipe list manageable.

The mod's source code includes specific compatibility for eight Pam's HarvestCraft tools: the Cutting Board, Pot, Skillet, Saucepan, Bakeware, Mortar and Pestle, Mixing Bowl, and Juicer. These are recognized as reusable "tool" ingredients, meaning they're treated as optional in the recipe display and won't be consumed when crafting. Place them on a Tool Rack or in the Oven's tool slots to make them available to the entire kitchen. Once placed, every recipe requiring those tools will light up in the Cooking Table.

The mod also filters out certain broken Pam's recipes (duplicate shapeless ore recipes that produce the same item from identical inputs) to keep the recipe list clean. This compatibility layer works automatically; you don't need to configure anything.

Kitchen Layout Tips

Designing an efficient kitchen is straightforward once you understand the connection rules. Place Kitchen Floor tiles across the entire room first, then build your appliances and storage on top. This ensures everything connects regardless of how spread out the room is. A typical layout has the Cooking Table centered with the Fridge on one side, Oven on the other, Sink nearby, and Cabinets mounted on the walls above.

Kitchen Counters come in various dyeable colors, letting you create a custom look for your kitchen. The checkered Kitchen Floor tiles add a classic diner feel, and you can mix colors to create patterns. The Fruit Basket and Spice Rack are especially nice for decoration since they visually display the items stored in them. Even the Fridge and Cabinets have door-opening animations with sound effects that add immersion.