Chang - Copycat Recipes Making Restaurants Most Popular Desserts at Home: ***Black and White Edition***

Everyone likes to dine out every once in a whilea date night with a significant other, a family dinner at a nice restaurant, lunch out or coffee with friends at a local caf, or even a quick drive-by at a favorite fast food place. Theres just something about eating out that, whether alone or with company, makes eating all the more enjoyable. Maybe you think that youll never be able to recreate the food you order at Outback Steakhouse, Starbucks, or McDonalds. So, you go in there, wait in line for what seems like an eternity, and then pay for food that you know is way overpriced. But what if you didnt have to go through all that? What if you could be munching on a Cinnabon you made right in your own home? No leaving the house, no waiting in line, and no spending money on expensive foodjust the amazing taste of your beloved restaurant dishes and the satisfaction that you were able to recreate them all by yourself (or with friends or family). And, with the help of this cookbook, youll be able to do just that in no time.

The Cost of Eating Out

When you pay for a meal at a restaurant, usually youre paying three times more than the actual cost of the ingredients it took to make the food. Thats around $14 in a restaurant which would have only cost $4.25 if you had made it yourself. There are four ways restaurant owners price their menu items. The first method is based on this equation: cost of raw ingredients divided by desired food cost percentage (which is about 25-30%) equals the price. This is how the $14 restaurant meal cost was calculated earlier.

The second method is to base the price on competing restaurants. Restaurant owners will either adopt the same price of their competitors, lower the price of their meals for those trying to find a better deal, or raise their prices to appear of higher quality compared to their competition.

The third method of menu pricing is to base prices on supply and demand. For example, the food is usually priced higher at places like sports stadiums and airports simply because they know you will be hungry and/or thirsty and there arent a lot of other options. Restaurants that have unique themes to their interior or food can also mark their prices higher since the customers arent just paying for the food, theyre also paying for the overall dining experience.

Finally, the fourth and last pricing method is by evaluating your menu items profitability. If restaurant owners know that one particular meal is selling well, they will raise the other prices by just a small, infinitesimal amount so that it will increase profitability to balance with the best-sellers. Regardless of the pricing method, when youre eating at a restaurant, youre not just paying for the food but for the restaurants overhead as well.

This cookbook is filled with copycat recipes from your favorite restaurants that you can make at home, some as quick as 30 minutes. These 100 recipes range from breakfast meals and snacks to entrees and desserts. Youll start cooking like a restaurant chef in no time!