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App Smart Extra: Cook’s Illustrated for the iPhone

App Smart Extra: Cook’s Illustrated for the iPhone

Last week’s App Smart column points out some of the best apps for dessert lovers.

One iPhone app, Cook’s Illustrated, didn’t make the cut, but not because of quality issues. In fact, I found the app more useful than almost any of the ones I tried.

It’s just that Cook’s is a little complicated.

The app is produced by America’s Test Kitchen, which publishes Cook’s Illustrated and acts as the cooking industry’s advertising-free answer to Consumer Reports.

The organization takes cooking seriously, and its recipes have earned a spot in my family’s regular food rotation. (See: pancakes; chocolate chip cookies.)

You can test the app for free and gain access to 50 recipes the publication has deemed its “all-time best,” along with video demonstrations and other ancillary content.

That alone should be enough to justify a download. But things get more complicated, and expensive, if you want to dig deeper.

For full mobile access to the organization’s recipe vault, you must first buy a magazine subscription, which is $25 annually (for six issues).

That combination, expensive though it may be, came in handy last week as I helped my wife with the “Wicked Good Boston Cream Pie” recipe. No searching for back issues. No printouts. Great results.

Some users have complained the app doesn’t have an iPad version, to which I offer a qualified pshaw.

I enlarged the iPhone version on my iPad, and the app was slightly pixilated, but otherwise usable.

Then again, for $25 a year, you shouldn’t have to squint even slightly.

[Thanks: http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com]

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