Google is solving a problem that many home cooks (yours truly included) can relate to: You pull up a recipe on your tablet or phone only to have the screen covered in sauce by the time said recipe is completed. A mess on the floor I can deal with. A mess on my iPhone? Not so much.
Today, Google is equipping its Google Assistant-powered speaker, Google Home, with over five million recipes from the likes of The New York Times, Food Network, and Bon Appetit. You’ll still be able to play music in the background or interrupt the speaker with other questions while in the middle of a recipe.
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To start, open Google Search on your iPhone — or, if you have an Android phone, go to your Google Assistant to pick a recipe. After you’ve found one you like, click “Send to Google Home.” Then, tell the speaker, “Okay Google, start cooking.” Google Home will then tell you instructions one step at a time. If you need to backtrack or are a bit behind after chopping your onions, just say “Okay Google, repeat.”
While Google Home beat Amazon Echo to the punch last week with its launch of multi-user voice recognition, Alexa was still the first one in the kitchen. In November, Amazon’s smart, voice-activated speaker made 60,000 Allrecipes meals available to cooks.
Nevertheless, these recipes are a welcome addition to Google Home — and, with millions of options, it's an impressively expansive start. Plus, the announcement comes with a delicious-looking guide to making raspberry cheesecake jars. You had me at cheesecake, Google.