Table of Contents
A PLUME BOOK
TOP SECRET RECIPES UNLOCKED
TODD WILBUR is the bestselling QVC cookbook author. Hes appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Today, and Good Morning America, among others. He lives in Las Vegas.
These probably come as close as you can get to the original recipes.Boston Herald
Many of [Wilburs] dishy imitations come, like a box of Cracker Jacks, with a surprise inside. Mademoiselle
The recipes are simply written and easy to do. This book offers great-tasting fun for the whole family.
The Clinton Chronicle (South Carolina)
The mission: Decode the secret recipes for Americas favorite junk foods. Equipment: Standard kitchen appliances. Goal: Leak the recipes to a ravenous public.USA Today
VISIT US ON THE WEB AT WWW.TOPSECRETRECIPES.COM
ALSO BY TODD WILBUR
Top Secret Recipes
More Top Secret Recipes
Even More Top Secret Recipes
Top Secret Restaurant Recipes
Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2
Top Secret Recipes Lite!
Low-Fat Top Secret Recipes
Top Secret Recipes: Sodas, Smoothies, Spirits, & Shakes
For Morea
A LITTLE FOREWORD
From Top Secret Recipes, 1993
In the laboratory (my kitchen), each of these recipes was subjected to a battering array of bakings and mixings, batch after batch, until the closest representation of the actual commercial product was finally achieved. I did not swipe, heist, bribe, or otherwise obtain any formulas through coercion or illegal means. Id like to think that many of these recipes are the actual formulas for their counterparts, but theres no way of knowing for sure. In such cases of closely guarded secret recipes, the closer one gets to matching a real products contents, the less likely it is that the protective manufacturer will say so.
The objective here was to duplicate the taste and texture of the products with everyday ingredients. In most cases, obtaining the exact ingredients for these mass-produced food products is nearly impossible. For the sake of security and convenience, many of the companies have contracted confidentially with vendors for the specialized production and packaging of each of their products ingredients. These prepackaged mixes and ingredients are then sent directly to the company for final preparation.
Debbi Fields of Mrs. Fields Cookies, for example, arranged with several individual companies to custom manufacture many of her cookies ingredients. Her vanilla alone is specially blended from a variety of beans grown in various places around the world. The other ingredientsthe chocolate, the eggs, the sugars, the flourall get specialized attention specifically for the Mrs. Fields company. The same holds true for McDonalds,Wendys, KFC, and most of the big-volume companies.
Even if you could bypass all the security measures and somehow get your hands on the secret formulas, youd have a hard time executing the recipes without locating many ingredients usually impossible to find at the corner market. Therefore, with taste in mind, substitution of ingredients other than those that may be used in the actual products is necessary in many cases to achieve a closely cloned end result.
THANK YOU
Its not easy to express in words just how grateful I am to everyone who has helped transform a 134-page trade paperback published in 1993 into a continuing series of cookbooks that has sold more than 4 million copies. From the person who plucked that first unsolicited manuscript out of the slush pile at Plume nearly twenty years ago, to the casual cook who uses these booksand to everyone in betweenI am so very thankful. As long as delicious new brand-name foods are created, and as long as I am lucky enough to have such a great crew behind the scenes, I hope to continue developing these culinary clones that can make home-cooked foods cool and fun.
Thanks to all at Penguin Group: Clare Ferraro, Cherise Fisher, Barbara OShea, Sandra Dear, Kimberly Cagle, Cherisse Landau, and everyone else who has tossed a pinch of this and a dash of that into these books over the years.
Thanks to the awesome hosts at QVC: Jill Bauer, Bob Bower-sox, Jayne Brown, Rick Domeier, Carolyn Gracie, Dan Hughes, Dave James, Pat James-DeMentri, Lisa Mason, Lisa Robertson, Mary Beth Roe, Jane Tracey, David Venable, Dan Wheeler, Leah Williams, and all of the QVC buyers, planners, and producers.
Thanks to Robert Reynolds, Bill Brucker, Perry Rogers, Robert John Kley, Darren Emmens, Malena Gibaja, and MeLinda Baca for their contributions, assistance, and advice.
Thanks to everyone at the Howard Stern Show for always keeping me entertained during those long hours in the kitchen. Bonus points: If Howard hadnt ended up on the radio, he says he would have been a chef.
Thanks to Anthony Corrado (a man who works even better without sleep), for always making the food look so delicious in photos and on TV. Hes a master at turning the hard work into a really good time.
Thanks to my family and friends, for stepping up as willing and honest taste-test guinea pigs.You didnt have to eat that really gross one, but you did anyway.
And a huge thanks (with a hug and a kiss) to my dearest critic and supporter, Pamela. Shes the secret ingredient behind everything that I have created, including my most cherished reproduction yetmy little daughter, Morea.
INTRODUCTION
In his hilarious Raw stand-up special from 1987, Eddie Murphy tells a story about when he was a kid begging his mother for a McDonalds hamburger.
Ill make you a hamburger better than McDonalds, she tells him.
Better than McDonalds?
Thats right.And you can help Momma make it. Now go get that big black frying pan under the stove.And go to the fridge and get me the chopped meat, and while youre in there get a green pepper and an onion.
Eddie is confused.But there aint no green pepper in McDonalds.
I need a green pepper and an onion, and while youre in there get me an egg out too.
Now Eddie is even more confused. What you need eggs for? I want a hamburger.Youre making an Egg McMuffin!
Im not makin an Egg McMuffin. I dont even know what a damn Egg McMuffin is. Just get me the egg out and shut your mouth.
He then describes how his mom takes the egg and mixes it with the meat and big chunks of green pepper and paprika and a bunch of other crazy stuff, and then she makes a giant meatball out of it and slaps it down into the hot frying pan, and it starts cooking.
Eddie is disgusted. Theres a big split in the middle and grease is popping out, and youre looking at it while its poppin and youre thinking to yourself, That dont look like no McDonalds!
Eddies right, of course.That burger didnt look like anything from McDonalds, and it surely didnt taste like anything from McDonalds, unless the chain starts to sell a McGreasy Green Pepper Paprika Meatball Sandwich.
Little Eddie was able to tell right away that Mommas burger was going to be a bad McDonalds clone, even before tasting it, because he knows what a McDonalds hamburger looks like... and what it shouldnt look like. Mommas clone was obviously way off, but knowing which recipes are going to work and which ones arent isnt always that easy. I have seen many so-called copycat recipes created by people with very little kitchen experience, and dubious intentionsthe recipes are poorly designed, ingredients have been tossed together without any analysis or testing, and then a brand name is slapped on top.Whats up with that? A copycat recipe, at first glance, might
