There was a time when you’d scribble grandma’s meatloaf recipe on an index card and tuck it between the dog-eared pages of a Betty Crocker cookbook. But Betty Crocker has been replaced by the iPad and a new app – Cookbook Café.

Cookbook Café is a free app that makes it possible for anyone to bypass the hurdles of traditional publishing to create, market and sell his or her cookbook.

Babette Pepaj, a former TV producer and founder of Hollywood-based recipe site BakeSpace.com, wanted to democratize cookbook publishing.

“This cookbook format allows people who have those quirky, unique spins on recipes and niche topics to get their stuff out there,” Pepaj said.

Cookbook Café has three main components: a cookbook builder, a reader and a storefront where the books are displayed for sale.

It’s scheduled to launch this week with 32 cookbooks.

Jo Deibel, founder of non-profit Angel Acres Horse Haven Rescue in Glenville, Penn., has already used the app to create five cookbooks.

“This app is so much easier than having to print those spiral-bound cookbooks, and get the proofs and go back and forth over the details,” Deibel said.

Some cookbooks are free, others can sell as high as $9.99. Cookbook Café takes 50 percent of the revenue from each sale. Pepaj said that the half-share is a good deal for authors.

“If they tried to get their own book published, they’d get significantly less than that,” she said.