However, Ben Sisario of "Blender" wrote, "For every killer raise-your-hands hook there is a snoozer of an SWV-esque torch ballad, and she can't seem to tell the difference." He went on to say, "Almost half the songs are treacly Kleenex soul ballads; even the titles...bring a cringe." "Los Angeles Times" writer Natalie Nichols found that "her souffle of hip-hop, soul, R&B, funk and dance music falls a bit flat". "Rolling Stone"s Brian Hiatt called "The Cookbook" Elliott's "least cohesive, most conventional album yet." "Entertainment Weekly"s Margeaux Watson viewed that "she's clearly lost without Timbaland", calling him "the main ingredient of her original flavor". Steve Horowitz of "PopMatters" noted that it "does have a few duds" and found some of the "offensive lyrics" as flaws, but wrote that "While not every cut is a winner, Elliott does a fairly consistent job of gaining the listener's attention through her outrageous lyrics and performance style".