I am unable to craft either in inventory or using craft table

At first all was fine, then I come back to the crafting table to craft a variety of items and I am unable to craft anything from it, the recipe book is completely empty. I tried crafting slabs from memory and even this does not appear to work. The only items that I have managed to craft since this has happened are stairs, sticks and on occasion, chests. I've tried exiting and reopening the world as well as the game and my laptop, however none of these have worked.
I'm not sure if this is something I am causing or if it is a bug, so I apologise if this was a waste of time as I have read that other similar issues have been resolved.