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Cook It
Inspiration
I cook a lot, and like everyone else, I save tons of food videos. The problem is that most of them never turn into actual meals. Something always gets in the way: vague instructions, missing ingredients, or tools I do not have. When I watched Eitan Bernath talk about the gap between inspiration and action, it clicked immediately. The real problem is not finding recipes, it is figuring out how to actually make them in your own kitchen.
What it does
Cook It turns food videos from YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram into a clear, cookable plan. You paste a link, and the app figures out what the recipe is, what ingredients and tools it needs, and where people usually get stuck. For anything that is hard to find, Cook It offers simple alternatives using three clear approaches: Original, Common Ingredients, and Use What I Have. The goal is to help you stop guessing and start cooking.
How we built it
Cook It uses a two-stage backend powered by Gemini. First, it analyzes the video to understand whether it is a recipe and extracts the core cooking intent, ingredients, and tools. Then it generates a structured plan with practical substitutions. The backend runs on Google Cloud Run and uses Apify when videos need to be fetched from social platforms. The Android app is built natively with Jetpack Compose and follows a simple MVVM structure. Monetization is handled with RevenueCat, using a generous free tier and a usage-based Pro upgrade.
Challenges we ran into
Video processing is slow and unreliable, especially across different platforms. YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram all behave differently, and downloads can fail. We had to design fallback paths and caching so the app still feels responsive during a demo. Another challenge was designing substitution labels that are clear to non-native English speakers without losing meaning.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We shipped a working end-to-end system that takes a real social video link and turns it into structured cooking guidance. The core substitution logic works, the Android app is installable via Play Console internal testing, and RevenueCat is fully integrated. Most importantly, the app stays generous and usable without locking the core experience behind a paywall.
What we learned
We learned that clarity matters more than cleverness, especially for a global audience. Small wording choices can make or break understanding. We also learned that separating “understanding the video” from “deciding how to cook” makes the system much easier to build, test, and explain.
What's next for Cook It
Next, I want to make Cook It more personal and more hands-free. That means remembering what users actually have in their pantry, improving confidence and explanations around substitutions, and eventually adding a voice-guided cooking mode. The long-term goal is simple: make cooking from saved videos feel easy instead of intimidating.
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