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  • $4.99

    Paprika Recipe Manager - Get your recipes organized!

    by Hindsight Labs LLC

    If your first stop for holiday dinners is a disorganized recipe box/drawer/folder/ziploc, try Paprika Recipe Manager instead. Paprika makes the process of entering your recipes relatively painless by providing a template for you. It also allows you to more easily save recipes from the Internet by integrating a web browser that includes a save function for certain websites, and capture buttons for more obscure websites. Eventually, your recipes will resemble a professional cookbook, but it will be your own personal cookbook! It is also important to note that Paprika has existed on the Mac for a long time and has Mac, iPad, and iPhone versions, syncing, and backup options, so you can be sure you won’t lose your precious recipes.

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  • $4.99

    How to Cook Everything for iPhone

    by Culinate, Inc.

    Whether you have a full recipe binder or are just starting out, it’s essential to have a “cooking bible” where you can check your technique, and How to Cook Everything for iPhone is the iOS version. Along with recipes for all the basics and much more, the app has a section titled “kitchen basics” that teaches basic cooking techniques, necessary equipment, and even how to cook some of the included recipes. The app is extremely polished and includes a great deal of useful information not found in other cooking apps. How to Cook Everything even recently updated with a special holiday section with menus (and recipes) for complete meals for multiple holidays, making it much easier to find holiday standards in the dense app.

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  • Free

    Epicurious Recipes & Shopping List

    by Condé Nast Digital

    Another great option for a comprehensive cooking app is Epicurious Recipes & Shopping List, the official iOS port of the very popular website. Epicurious is so comprehensive that it’s probably not an exaggeration to say that, if you can think of a food you’d like to make, you’ll probably find the recipe on Epicurious. The only drawback is the navigation system, as the app seems designed more for searching than browsing. For the holidays, however, Epicurious has added “featured” categories of holiday staples to make it easier for users to find what they want (and have the skill to make!).

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  • $7.99

    Baking with Dorie

    by CulinApp, LLC.

    If you’re really new to baking or only like cooking with someone next to you, Baking with Dorie is a must. As the title suggests, users can prop their iPads on the counter and watch Dorie do each step of each recipe as if she were standing next to them. Thankfully for those who prefer to go it alone, the app offers multiple viewing options, including a traditional recipe. Although the attempt to update the cookbook format is appreciated, we wish Baking with Dorie had less Dorie and more Baking, as 24 recipes is too few for an app of this size and price.

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  • $0.99

    Festive Holiday Baking

    by D. Noel Keshwar

    If long recipes with multiple ingredients with strange names scare you, Festive Holiday Baking will be like a dream. Each recipe in the app has at most eight ingredients, which means they should be simpler to make and will be easier to shop for! If only the app were as simple to navigate, then it would be perfect.

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  • $4.99

    FOOD52 Holiday Recipe & Survival Guide

    by Open Air Publishing

    Whether this is your first year hosting or your 50th, holidays are stressful, so this year why not let Food52 Holiday Recipe & Survival Guide do some of the work of planning your party. Food52 is designed for events more than a traditional cookbook, and as such it has a significant amount of content on entertaining and parties in addition to recipes. The app also has menus, sections on special needs cooking, techniques, and equipment. Plus: there’s a section on how to make a gingerbread house!

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  • $5.99

    French Cakes, Pastries and Jams

    by Editions Larousse

    Those looking to impress their friends and relatives with their culinary prowess should try Larousse’s French Cakes, Pastries, & Jams. French pastries may not be traditional holiday staples, but this app makes a compelling case for their inclusion on your holiday table. Larousse’s French Cakes, Pastries, & Jams is essentially a cookbook transformed into an app with few bells and whistles, but the recipes themselves and the section on teaching traditional techniques makes up for the lack of multimedia content. Although we would appreciate a better browsing experience, the app wins points by offering recipes not available in other apps.

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  • $4.99

    Martha Stewart Cookies

    by Callaway Digital Arts, Inc.

    No holiday is complete without cookies, and Martha Stewart Cookies is a beautifully presented collection of many of the most popular cookie recipes. You will feel like a kid in a bakery as you navigate through the pages of gorgeous cookie photos. Martha Stewart may be known as a “domestic goddess,” but the app does have a few issues worth noting. First, we found it odd that Martha Stewart, ostensibly the creator of the app, is in less than half (closer to a third) of the videos in the app. Second, the layout obscures the reality that there aren’t that many recipes in the app and several are “sponsored,” which leads to the third issue: the holiday cookie section is only available via an in-app purchase of 99 cents. Despite these flaws, the app is one of the most fun to use, and would likely be a hit with kids.

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  • $3.99

    Primrose Bakery

    by Random House

    Cupcakes are all the rage these days, and now you can make your own version of the signature treats of one of Britain’s most famous cupcake shops with the Primrose Bakery app! Primrose Bakery has many recipes for cupcakes, frosting, layer cakes and biscuits, and also includes a few videos demonstrating techniques it would be difficult to describe in writing (e.g., how to ice a cupcake). The recipes look delicious and like they will produce bakery-quality cupcakes that will delight any holiday table. The only real issue is that the measurements are in Metric, which may be difficult for some U.S. cooks.

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  • $4.99

    Appetites' Easy As Pie featuring Evan Kleiman

    by Clear-Media

    Pies are a holiday staple, and Appetites’ Easy as Pie featuring Evan Kleiman is a one stop shop for pie recipes. The app is clearly designed for people who like watching videos of recipes, as there is no option to view all parts of a recipe on a single screen or email or print the recipe. If those deficits don’t bother you and you like pie, Appetites' Easy as Pie will likely win you over. The app has an impressive number of recipes for a video app, with sections on crusts and toppings as well as pies and pudding pies.

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  • $2.99

    Allergy Free Entertaining

    by Melinda's Gluten Free Goodies

    If you have to cook for anyone with a special diet, you need Allergy Free Entertaining. The app is designed to make it as easy as possible to cook dishes that are safe for people with dietary restrictions. Allergy Free Entertaining has a section on foods for entertaining, and the ability to filter recipes according to allergies (e.g. gluten free, nut free) or diet (e.g. low sugar, vegan). Since baking and desserts are notoriously difficult for those with dietary restrictions, Allergy Free Entertaining’s many dessert options will likely be a relief for some party planners.

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  • Free

    Wilton Cake Ideas & More

    by Wilton

    Some say cooking is an art and baking is a science, but Wilton Cake Ideas & More helps you turn your baked goods into art. The app will help you transform traditional desserts like those from the apps above into artful masterpieces with fondant and frosting. The instructions could be great fun for families to do together, but it seems unlikely that novice chefs or non-artists will come close to the pictures. Still, it’s a fun look.