{"id":135878,"date":"2024-11-04T16:00:36","date_gmt":"2024-11-04T16:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/developer.apple.com\/news\/?id=9x75y43e"},"modified":"2024-11-04T16:00:36","modified_gmt":"2024-11-04T16:00:36","slug":"coding-in-the-kitchen-how-devin-davies-whipped-up-the-tasty-recipe-app-crouton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2024\/11\/04\/coding-in-the-kitchen-how-devin-davies-whipped-up-the-tasty-recipe-app-crouton\/","title":{"rendered":"Coding in the kitchen: How Devin Davies whipped up the tasty recipe app Crouton"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"inline-article-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/coding-in-the-kitchen-how-devin-davies-whipped-up-the-tasty-recipe-app-crouton.jpg\" data-img-dark=\"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/coding-in-the-kitchen-how-devin-davies-whipped-up-the-tasty-recipe-app-crouton.jpg\" data-hires=\"false\" alt=\"An illustration of a kitchen with teal walls and white cabinets. Two Apple Vision Pro screens float above a stove, on which sits a pot and pan.\"><\/div>\n<p>Let\u2019s get this out of the way: Yes, Devin Davies is an excellent cook. \u201cI\u2019m not, like, a professional or anything,\u201d he says, in the way that people say they\u2019re not good at something when they are.<\/p>\n<p>But in addition to knowing his way around the kitchen, Davies is also a seasoned developer whose app <em>Crouton<\/em>, a Swift-built cooking aid, won him the 2024 Apple Design Award for Interaction.<\/p>\n<p><em>Crouton<\/em> is part recipe manager, part exceptionally organized kitchen assistant. For starters, the app collects recipes from wherever people find them \u2014 blogs, family cookbooks, scribbled scraps from the \u201990s, wherever \u2014 and uses tasty ML models to import and organize them. \u201cIf you find something online, just hit the Share button to pull it into <em>Crouton<\/em>,\u201d says the New Zealand-based developer. \u201cIf you find a recipe in an old book, just snap a picture to save it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And when it\u2019s time to start cooking, <em>Crouton<\/em> reduces everything to the basics by displaying only the current step, ingredients, and measurements (including conversions). There\u2019s no swiping around between apps to figure out how many <em>fl oz<\/em> are in a cup; no setting a timer in a different app. It\u2019s all handled right in <em>Crouton<\/em>. \u201cThe key for me is: How quickly can I get you back to preparing the meal, rather than reading?\u201d Davies says.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p class=\"sosumi margin-top-small\">ADA FACT SHEET<\/p>\n<div class=\"inline-article-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/coding-in-the-kitchen-how-devin-davies-whipped-up-the-tasty-recipe-app-crouton-1.jpg\" data-img-dark=\"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/coding-in-the-kitchen-how-devin-davies-whipped-up-the-tasty-recipe-app-crouton-1.jpg\" data-hires=\"false\" alt=\"A Crouton screenshot that shows a recipe for butter chicken, with a photo of the dish above a list of ingredients.\"><\/div>\n<h3>Crouton<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Winner:<\/strong> Interaction<\/li>\n<li><strong>Available on:<\/strong> iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Vision Pro, Apple Watch<\/li>\n<li><strong>Team size:<\/strong> 1<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/crouton.app\/index.html\" class=\"icon icon-after icon-chevronright\">Learn more about Crouton<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apps.apple.com\/us\/app\/crouton-recipe-manager\/id1461650987\" class=\"icon icon-after icon-chevronright\">Download Crouton from the App Store<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Crouton<\/em> is the classic case of a developer whipping up something he needed. As the de facto chef in the house, Davies had previously done his meal planning in the Notes app, which worked until, as he laughs, \u201cit got a little out of hand.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At the time, Davies was in his salad days as an iOS developer, so he figured he could build something that would save him a little time. (It\u2019s in his blood: Davies\u2019s father is a developer too.) &#8220;Programming was never my strong suit,\u201d he says, \u201cbut once I started building something that solved a problem, I started thinking of programming as a means to an end, and that helped.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Davies\u2019s full-time job was his meal ticket, but he started teaching himself Swift on the side. Swift, he says, clicked a lot faster than the other languages he\u2019d tried, especially as someone who was still developing a taste for programming. \u201cIt still took me a while to get my head into it,\u201d he says, \u201cbut I found pretty early on that Swift worked the way I wanted a language to work. You can point <em>Crouton<\/em> at some text, import that text, and do something with it. The amount of steps you don\u2019t have to think about is astounding.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"article-quote\">\n<p>I found pretty early on that Swift worked the way I wanted a language to work.<\/p>\n<p><cite><\/p>\n<p>Devin Davies, <em>Crouton<\/em><\/p>\n<p><\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Coding with Swift offered plenty of baked-in benefits. Davies leaned on platform conventions to make navigating <em>Crouton<\/em> familiar and easy. Lists and collection views took advantage of Camera APIs. VisionKit powered text recognition; a separate model organized imported ingredients by category.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI could separate out a roughly chopped onion from a regular onion and then add the quantity using a Core ML model,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing how someone like me can build a model to detect ingredients when I really have zero understanding of how it works.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"inline-article-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/coding-in-the-kitchen-how-devin-davies-whipped-up-the-tasty-recipe-app-crouton-2.jpg\" data-img-dark=\"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/coding-in-the-kitchen-how-devin-davies-whipped-up-the-tasty-recipe-app-crouton-2.jpg\" data-hires=\"false\" alt=\"An Apple Vision Pro screenshot of Crouton, showing a window containing a chocolate chip cookie recipe floating over a gray marble kitchen counter.\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"typography-caption\">\n<p>Davies designed <em>Crouton<\/em> with simplicity in mind at all times. \u201cI spent a lot of time figuring out what to leave out rather than bring in,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The app came together quickly: The first version was done in about six months, but <em>Crouton<\/em> simmered for a while before finding its audience. \u201cMy mom and I were the main active users for maybe a year,\u201d Davies laughs. \u201cBut it\u2019s really important to build something that you use yourself \u2014 especially when you\u2019re an indie \u2014 so there\u2019s motivation to carry on.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Davies served up <em>Crouton<\/em> updates for a few years, and eventually the app gained more traction, culminating with its Apple Design Award for Interaction at WWDC24. That\u2019s an appropriate category, Davies says, because he believes his approach to interaction is his app\u2019s special sauce. \u201cMy skillset is figuring out how the pieces of an app fit together, and how you move through them from point A to B to C,\u201d he says. \u201cI spent a lot of time figuring out what to leave out rather than bring in.\u201d <\/p>\n<div class=\"inline-article-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/coding-in-the-kitchen-how-devin-davies-whipped-up-the-tasty-recipe-app-crouton-3.jpg\" data-img-dark=\"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/coding-in-the-kitchen-how-devin-davies-whipped-up-the-tasty-recipe-app-crouton-3.jpg\" data-hires=\"false\" alt=\"A *Crouton* screenshot that shows a grid of recipes, including burritos, butter chicken, and chocolate chip cookies. Each module includes a photo of the dish.\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"typography-caption\">\n<p><em>Crouton<\/em> recipes can be imported from blogs, cookbook, scraps of paper, or anywhere else they might be found.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Davies hopes to use the coming months to explore spicing up <em>Crouton<\/em> with Apple Intelligence, Live Activities on Apple Watch, and translation APIs. (Though <em>Crouton<\/em> is his primary app, he\u2019s also built an Apple Vision Pro app called <em>Plate Smash<\/em>, which is presumably very useful for cooking stress relief.)<\/p>\n<p>But it\u2019s important to him that any new features or upgrades pair nicely with the current <em>Crouton<\/em>. \u201cI\u2019m a big believer in starting out with core intentions and holding true to them,\u201d he says. \u201cI don\u2019t think that the interface, over time, has to be completely different.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"article-quote\">\n<p>My skillset is figuring out how the pieces of an app fit together, and how you move through them from point A to B to C.<\/p>\n<p><cite><\/p>\n<p>Devin Davies, <em>Crouton<\/em><\/p>\n<p><\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Because it\u2019s a kitchen assistant, <em>Crouton<\/em> is a very personal app. It\u2019s in someone\u2019s kitchen at mealtime, it\u2019s helping people prepare means for their loved ones, it\u2019s enabling them to expand their culinary reach. It makes a direct impact on a person\u2019s day. That\u2019s a lot of influence to have as an app developer \u2014 even when a recipe doesn\u2019t quite pan out.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSometimes I\u2019ll hear from people who discover a bug, or even a kind of misunderstanding, but they\u2019re always very kind about it,\u201d laughs Davies. \u201cThey\u2019ll tell me, \u2018Oh, I was baking a cake for my daughter\u2019s birthday, and I put in way too much cream cheese and I ruined it. But, great app!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/developer.apple.com\/design\/awards\/\" class=\"icon icon-after icon-chevronright\">Meet the 2024 Apple Design Award winners<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"sosumi margin-top-small\"><em>Behind the Design is a series that explores design practices and philosophies from finalists and winners of the Apple Design Awards. In each story, we go behind the screens with the developers and designers of these award-winning apps and games to discover how they brought their remarkable creations to life.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Let\u2019s get this out of the way: Yes, Devin Davies is an excellent cook. \u201cI\u2019m not, like, a professional or anything,\u201d he says, in the way that people say they\u2019re not good at something when they are. But in addition to knowing his way around the kitchen, Davies is also a seasoned developer whose app [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":135879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apple-developer-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135878\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}