Have you ever wanted a copy of your best friend’s chocolate chip cookie recipe, but don’t have the patience to copy down all of the ingredients? A new mobile application from Seattle’s BigOven solves that nagging problem.

“Users can simply whip out their iPhone or iPad 2, snap a photo of a recipe, and BigOven will convert each recipe photo to an online recipe, complete with ingredients, instructions, categorization – ready to add to grocery lists, email to people, share on facebook, get calorie counts, and more,” explains CEO Steve Murch. “It saves users tons of time typing recipes themselves.”

BigOven hosts the recipes, and they are stored in your private collection. That means you have your recipes wherever you wander, while traveling, visiting a friend’s house or shopping at the farmer’s market.

Sounds pretty cool, huh?

BigOven’s new RecipeScan app costs 99 cents per recipe, or users can buy credits in bulk. (12 for $9.99, 40 for $29.99 or 100 for$59.99). Every member of BigOven gets three free credits to try out the service.

The recipes don’t show up in real time, with BigOven taking a day or two to covert the photos to text and place in the user’s digital recipe box.

Murch tells GeekWire that no one else is doing anything like this.

“Short of telekinesis, there is no easier way to get a recipe you love entered onto the web, your iPad, iPhone, Android or Windows Phone.  You just snap a photo and upload it,” he says. (An Android version is in the works).

BigOven said that it has recorded about five million downloads of its recipe applications.

Here’s a video of the app in action:

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