33 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Delightful Sequel, July 26, 2000
This review is from: More Top Secret Recipes: More Fabulous Kitchen Clones of America's Favorite Brand-Name Foods (Mass Market Paperback)
I really enjoyed the first book so I figured I was bound to enjoy the second book and yes, I did. Although this book had more cookies and candy than regular meals, I truly enjoyed it and tried some of the recipes like the Arby's Sauce and Nabisco's Nutter Butter cookies. (No, I didn't make the silly peanut shape. Yes, they tasted just like the real thing.) I see that some reviewers were hoping for more main course stuff which Todd Wilbur supplied in his Top Secret Restaurant Recipes. If you are looking for snack stuff, this book is great and up your alley. If you are looking for main courses, you won't enjoy this book as much.
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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A lot of fun, but don't expect miracles, August 1, 2004
This review is from: More Top Secret Recipes: More Fabulous Kitchen Clones of America's Favorite Brand-Name Foods (Mass Market Paperback)
If the poor condition of the library copy is any indication, More Top Secret Recipes is a very popular book!
Todd Wilbur has a number of books, and it can be a little confusing sorting them out. There are three "Top Secret Recipes" books, Top Secret Recipes, More Top Secret Recipes (this book) and Even More Top Secret Recipes. These books focus on what Wilbur calls "convenience foods." That is, most packaged sweets and fast food. He also has a book Top Secret Restaurant Recipes, in which he attempts to duplicate the foods of mostly casual dining restaurants like Chili's and Applebee's. He also has a book solely on drinks.
Wilbur explains in the Introduction of More Top Secret Recipes that these are not the actual recipes used by restaurants, and he did not obtain them through bribery, theft other illegal or illicit means. He starts with the ingredient list on packages of food and modifies the relative amounts, or with fast food, tries to identify the ingredients by taste. He admits that the real producers of these foods often use custom ingredients unavailable to the consumer, and that the goal was to match the texture and flavor of the food, and appearance is secondary.
So why try to clone commercially-available food? In both More Top Secret Recipes and Even More Top Secret Recipes, the author mentions availability. Some of the foods are regional, and you may not get them where you live. In the introduction to More Top Secret Recipes, he gives a list of reasons including low cost and curiosity. I'm not so sure about the cost argument, since a dozen Three Musketeers had $5 of chocolate chips in it alone, but the curiosity is what applied to me. I just wanted to know, "Can I really duplicate these commercial foods at home?"
This book contains recipes cloning the likes of McDonald's, Nabisco, Carl's Jr. and Taco Bell. Every recipe includes a history of the food item, something alone which makes this book valuable, and a dimensioned engineering graphic of the product. In addition, More Top Secret Recipes includes an introduction with questions from readers, like, "What have you heard from the companies whose products you are copying," (nothing) and "After testing all of these recipes, aren't you a huge, fat pig?" (No.) The recipes make as much use as possible of premade food and mixes. For example, most candy bars are coated with melted chocolate chips, so you will not find that you have to crush cocoa beans, or perform any such low-level task.
So far from this book, I have made (attempted to make) Cinnabon Cinnamon Rolls, M&M/Mars' Three Musketeers, Nabisco Chips Ahoy! and Nabisco Oreo cookies.
The Cinnabon Cinnamon Rolls were a success. But then, I've never had the real thing, so I can't compare. My wife wasn't sure about the cream cheese frosting being right, but we both loved them anyway. The Three Musketeers were another pretty good success. Of course, I can't duplicate the exact shape and size that M&M/Mars can with millions of dollars of machines, and the chocolate coating was a little thick, and never got really firm, but the texture and taste were dead-on. Chips Ahoy! are kind of personal because my grandmother used to make them. Really. They didn't turn out dark enough without overbaking (remember the disclaimers), but they resulted with the perfect, crispy texture of the real thing. However, the taste wasn't quite right. They were so good, though, that when I make chocolate chip cookies from now on, I will use this recipe instead of the traditional Toll House recipe (The main difference seems to be that the Chips Ahoy! recipe omits eggs.) The Oreos were just plain bad. The filling was not at all firm enough (the consistency of cake icing - which it basically is.) My cookies were too thin, but still chewy although baking the recommended time. Playing with the thickness and baking time and temperature may give better results. For many of these recipes, rolling pin rings would be beneficial to assure proper thickness.
Using this book was fun and informative. I've had mixed results using these books. In short, don't expect miracles with every recipe.
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Buyer beware..., January 25, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: More Top Secret Recipes: More Fabulous Kitchen Clones of America's Favorite Brand-Name Foods (Mass Market Paperback)
Don't get me wrong: Todd Wilbur's cookbooks are fun with a capital "F", but if you expect to re-create fast foods and chain-restaurant favorites in your own kitchen using his books, you're in for a nasty surprise. Unless, of course, you already possess a fair amount of kitchen common sense. For example, if you try to fry his "Dunkin Donuts" at the recommended temperature of 350 degrees, you WILL end up with pumpernickel bread in less than 2 minutes (try 280 degrees, instead). Should you follow his recipe for the Olive Garden's Soupa Toscana, what you end up with is a muddy kale & potato mess after 2 hours of boiling, with separated cream on top (contrary to his recipe, simmer for just 30 minutes instead of 2 hours, and add the cream at the end instead of the beginning. Also, use half of his recommended amount of red pepper flakes). If you add the 2 cups of water that's called for in his recipe for Wendy's Chili, what you will get is a thin tomato & bean soup, not chili; skip the water, and the chili comes out very good. Enlist the services of a psychic if you try to make Hostess Twinkies, because his list of ingredients at the beginning of the recipe is different from what he describes in the actual recipe itself. I don't regret buying his books, but keep in mind that just as Todd Wilbur had to play detective in "breaking" these recipes, so will the reader who tries to reproduce them, because they serve as loose guidelines at very best. You will have to do some gumshoe work as well, if you expect these recipes to work. But hey, at least he gives us somewhere to start. And it is fun! Oh yeah, the Oreo cookies are pretty close to the real thing, by the way.
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