Minecraft wiki entry for Beginner%27s_guide, associated text: When starting a game, your first craft typically involves two steps: First, take a single log of wood and put it in the crafting grid. The output slot then shows a stack of four matching wooden planks, which you can then take. Then take those planks and put one in each of the crafting grid's four slots. The output slot then shows a crafting table, which you should take, put on your hotbar, and place down in the world to begin more advanced crafting. Having placed the table, you can right-click on it ("use", as above) to open a UI similar to your inventory, but with a 3×3 crafting grid. This lets you do many more recipes; you can also use it for any recipe you could craft in your inventory, but the larger crafting grid allows many more possibilities. Notice that the crafting table also has a Recipe Book icon, as do several other utility blocks you encounter later in the game. Any of these recipe books show only the recipes that apply to its block. So your inventory's recipe book shows only 2×2 recipes, but the crafting table's recipe book shows all of its crafting recipes. Similarly, the furnace's recipe book shows smelting recipes, and so on.