Step by step, one tool at a time
Grandma's Toolbox has four tools along the bottom of the screen: Timers, Recipe, Converter and Baker's. Everything you type stays on your phone. Tap a heading below to open it.
Starts a countdown for one thing, such as eggs or bread. Tap New timer. Give it a name if you like. Tap a time like 5 min, or type your own hours, minutes and seconds under Custom time. Pick a sound and tap Start. You can run as many timers at once as you like.
Shows each running timer as a card, so you can see at a glance what is cooking. The top line shows the name and its ETA, the time the timer should be finished. Pause and Stop are on the right. The big number is the time left. A paused timer shows Resume.
Changes the time left on a running timer without stopping it. Beside the time left are small buttons. Tap + to add time. Tap it again and it changes to − so you can take time off. Then tap 1m, 5m or 10m, or the ⋯ button for 30 seconds, 15 minutes, 30 minutes or 1 hour. If you take off more than is left, the timer ends right away.
Rings to tell you the time is up, and keeps ringing until you answer it. It works even with the phone locked. On the card tap Continue (or Done), Snooze for 1, 5 or 10 minutes, or Add time. The notification has the same buttons. Android silences notification sounds during a phone call, so the app plays the sound itself in a call unless you turn that off in Settings; you can also turn vibration off there. Allow notifications for Grandma's Toolbox when Android asks, or an alert cannot reach you.
Runs a whole recipe as a series of timed steps, one after another. For example, boil for 30 minutes, bake for an hour, then rest for 15. Under My custom timers tap New. Name it, then add the steps. For each step give a name, a time, whether the next step starts by itself or waits for you, an optional note, and a sound. Save it, then tap Start whenever you cook it. The editor shows when each step would end if you started now. To do the same step several times in a row, such as folding dough 5 times, set Times to repeat on that stage instead of adding the stage again; the card shows which time you are on, like 3 of 5, and each time follows the stage's "Start the next stage" or "Wait for me" setting.
Shows when the whole timer should be finished. That time is the ETA. It assumes every step starts as soon as the one before it ends. If a step is waiting for you and you are busy, the ETA keeps moving later until you tap Continue.
Keeps your timers going when the app is closed or the phone restarts. If one finished while the app was not running, you get a Timer interrupted alert that says how long ago it finished. You can choose its sound in Settings.
Helps you find out why a timer did not sound when it should have. Check that notifications are allowed for the app, that the alarm volume is turned up, and that Android allows Alarms and reminders for the app. Some phones stop apps in the background to save battery. If a timer is late, exclude Grandma's Toolbox from battery saving.
Reads a list of ingredients so that the amounts can be scaled. Type or paste the ingredients, one per line. Amounts like 1 1/2, ½ and 2-3 are understood, and so are cups, spoons, ounces, pounds, grams and millilitres. A line without an amount, such as salt to taste, is shown as written and is not scaled.
Decides how much to multiply every amount by. Servings: say what the recipe serves and what you want. One ingredient: pick a line and say how much of it you have, such as 750 g of flour. Multiply: type a number, or tap ½, 2, 3 or 4.
Rewrites the whole recipe in metric or US measures. Show amounts in As written, Metric or US. In Metric you can turn on Weigh flour, sugar, butter and the like, to get grams for the ingredients the app knows. Those weights are typical, so weigh your own when it matters.
Keeps whole items sensible when you scale a recipe. Things such as eggs are rounded to a whole number, and the line tells you the exact figure. The name agrees with the number: 1 egg, 2 eggs.
Adds less than the full extra amount of salt, spices and leavening when you scale a recipe up. Doubling a recipe rarely needs double the salt. Turn on Go easy on salt, spices and leavening to add three quarters of the extra instead of all of it. It is a rule of thumb, so taste and adjust.
Leaves cooking times alone, because they do not follow the amount. The app does not change cooking times when you scale a recipe. Check the dish as it cooks.
Takes the scaled ingredient list out of the app. Copy puts it on the clipboard. Share as checklist sends it to another app, such as Note Magic, as lines that start with [ ] so they become a checklist.
Converts an amount from one unit to another, such as cups to millilitres or ounces to grams. Pick a chip: Volume, Weight, Temp, Length, Ingredient or Buy. Type an amount in either box and the other fills in. Tap the fraction keys ¼ ⅓ ½ ⅔ ¾ to add fractions, tap the swap button to flip the units, and tap the ✕ in a box to clear the number and keep your units.
Changes a measure of an ingredient, such as cups of flour, into its weight in grams, and back again, so you can weigh instead of scoop. Use the Ingredient chip and choose an ingredient. The weights are typical, and how you fill a cup changes them, so weigh when you can.
Sets which size of cup, spoon and pint the app uses, because they differ from country to country. Tap the region line to choose US, US legal (the nutrition label), UK and Ireland, Canada or Australia. Your choice is remembered.
Converts an oven temperature between °F, °C and UK gas marks, and shows a fan-oven setting. Use the Temp chip. The fan-oven setting is about 20°C lower. A gas mark is the nearest mark on a standard chart.
Works out how many whole packages to buy for the amount a recipe needs, and how much will be left over. Use the Buy chip. If you need 7 cups of milk and it comes in quarts, enter 7 cups and a 1 quart package. It tells you to buy 2 quarts and how much is left over. It also works with weights, such as flour in 5 lb bags.
Shows how an answer was worked out, and keeps the conversions you want to come back to. The line under the result is the working. Press Keep to save what is on screen to the History tab, then tap an entry there to bring it back. The size of the History is in Settings.
Turns the weights in a recipe into baker's percentages, so you can see how wet, salty or yeasty a dough is and compare it with another recipe. On the Analyze tab add each ingredient with its weight. Baker's percentages are measured against the total flour, so flour is 100%. You also get the hydration, which is the water compared with the flour, and a summary. Tap Use as a formula to scale to carry the weights over to the Scale tab.
Turns baker's percentages into the actual weights for the amount of dough you want to make. On the Scale tab enter percentages, or start from a typical formula, then choose how much to make: total dough, total flour, or a number of pieces and the weight of each. Extra for loss adds a little for dough that stays on the bowl. The typical formulas are starting points to adjust, not checked recipes.
Splits a recipe into a pre-ferment, a small dough or batter you mix ahead of time, and the final dough. On the Scale tab choose Poolish, Biga or Sourdough and say how much of the flour goes into it. The app shows what to mix first and what to mix after, and the two add up to your whole formula.
Adapts the calculator for gluten-free doughs, where flours and starches are counted together and a binder holds the dough. Turn on Gluten-free. Every flour and starch counts as flour, and a blend is several flour lines that add up to 100%. A binder such as xanthan gum starts at 2% of the flour, which is a starting point to test. The app does not certify anything as gluten-free, so check ingredient labels.
Converts an amount of yeast from one kind to another: instant, active dry or fresh. On the Tools tab enter the amount you have and choose the two kinds. The factors are rules of thumb, so test with your own yeast.
Works out how warm the water should be so that the dough comes out at the temperature you want. On the Tools tab enter the dough temperature you want, the room and flour temperatures, and how you mix: by hand, stand mixer or your own number. Find my number measures your own mixer from one trial batch.
Works out how much to scale a recipe, or its dough weight, when you change from one pan to another. On the Tools tab give the measurements of the pan the recipe was written for and the pan you will use. Flat pans are compared by area and loaf pans by volume.
Holds the choices that change how the app behaves. Open the menu at the top right and choose Settings. There you can choose the timer sounds, whether a sound plays when you pick it, whether a timer vibrates or plays its sound during a phone call, kitchen fractions, the math line, the size of the History and how grams are rounded.
Tells you what the free version includes and what the optional one-time Pro adds. The free version runs up to 3 timers at once, keeps up to 2 custom timers, has four timer sounds, the recipe scaler, the converter and the baker's Tools. Pro removes those limits and adds how much to buy, the baker's Analyze and Scale, weighing in grams in the recipe scaler and every timer sound. Open Settings and tap the Free version card to see the full list. Nothing you have saved is ever taken away. Pro is paid once through Google Play; on a new phone, open the Pro screen and tap Restore purchase.
Tell a friend shares a short message and a link, and About shows the version. The message never includes anything you have typed. Support the developer, also in the menu, offers a few optional tips paid through Google Play. A tip unlocks nothing and everything stays as it is.
Keeps everything you enter on your phone. There is no account, no advertising, and the app has no internet permission.
Times, temperatures and weights here are guides. Check that food is cooked safely. Grandma's Toolbox gives no medical, allergy or food-safety advice.