Two different things happen when a recipe goes live: the recipe is published, and your food blog is served to the public. The first is a button. The second needs a subscription.
1. Check it as a reader
Press Preview recipe in the editor. The recipe opens as a finished page, and you can switch between Desktop, Tablet and Mobile to see how it reads on a phone in a kitchen.
On a wide screen, Split view keeps the finished page beside the editor while you type. Preview cannot change or publish anything.
2. Publish the recipe
Press Publish recipe. Publishing checks three things a reader needs: a title, a short description of at least ten characters, and a valid web address. Blank ingredient lines and blank steps are rejected too — fill them in or remove them with ✕.
Anything it refuses comes back as a message on the field itself, and nothing is published until it passes. If setup is still unfinished, Publish saves your work as a draft first and asks whether to finish those steps. Finish setup keeps that draft.
3. Put the blog on the web
If nothing is paying for your blog yet, Publish recipe saves your work as a draft and offers you a subscription. That is not a trick to get you to pay early: writing is free for the whole trial, and being read by the public is what the subscription buys.
Subscribe during your trial and you are not charged until the trial would have ended, so nothing is lost by publishing on day one.
Where it appears
A published recipe is listed on your blog’s home page and has its own page at /your-address/recipes/your-recipe. The editor shows a View live link once it is published.