It's the Rice Krispies Treat for chocolate lovers. By replacing regular Rice Krispies with Kellogg's Cocoa Krispies, then adding a bit of cocoa to the recipe, we can clone the exact flavor of the product you otherwise have to buy in boxes. This recipe makes 16 of the crispy brown bars, or the equivalent of two boxes of the real thing.
This limited-time-only new product from the country’s biggest Mexican fast food chain is easy to make with bagged fries found in the freezer section, and you can make as many or as few as you want at one time since there is more than enough seasoning and cheese sauce for one 2-pound bag. Get Ore-Ida Golden Fries if you can find them, and if you want a good clone you really should fry them, although baking works too. The secret spicy ingredient in the nacho cheese sauce is brine from the bottled jalapeno nacho slices, plus a little cayenne for extra boom. And if you’re feeling creative, you can make a fry holder like the one Taco Bell serves the fries in by cutting the top off a paper cup. You can also cut the bottom off another paper cup and use it to hold the sauce.
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The PSL is doing A-OK at Starbucks. In 2018, Starbucks moved the release of its seasonal Pumpkin Spice Latte from September to August in anticipation of record sales for the 15-year-old product. According to Nation’s Restaurant News, consumers in 2017 “visited PSL establishments twice as many times as typical patrons,” most likely because they know the drinks are around for only a short time.
The trick when hacking this Starbucks superstar is making a perfect clone of the syrup used in the drink. I found a friendly barista who was willing to squirt a little of the secret syrup into a cup for me to take back to headquarters for examination. Back in the kitchen I discovered the mysterious light orange-colored syrup had no spice particles in it whatsoever, meaning the flavors are added as extracts or oils. Most home cooks like you and me cannot get such ingredients, so I had to come up with a formula using easily accessible ground spices and pumpkin puree.
Pumpkin pie spice makes this recipe easy and much cheaper than buying all the spices separately. It’s a convenient blend of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, plus either allspice or clove, and it’s found in practically all food stores. For our hack, the blend is combined with a sugar solution and cooked until syrupy, then sweetened condensed milk is stirred in. Condensed milk is also used in the original syrup at Starbucks—according to the ingredients list—which is why the syrup is opaque and creamy. When the syrup is done, a couple tablespoons are added to your latte, then it’s topped off with whipped cream and a sprinkling of more spice.
Lattes are made with espresso, and in this case you’ll need a double shot, which is about ¼ cup. If you can’t make espresso, then make some strong coffee and use ½ cup of it. If you don’t have a way to steam milk, you can heat it up in the microwave for 2 minutes or until hot, then make it foamy with a milk foamer, inversion blender, or whisk.
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Menu Description: "Large shrimp sauteed in extra-virgin olive oil with white wine, garlic and lemon."
Once you have the onion, garlic and parsley all chopped up, this clone of a top appetizer pick at the Garden takes only a few minutes to assemble. Cooks at Olive Garden speed up the process by using what they call "scampi butter"—chilled blocks of butter with all the spices, garlic, and onions already in it—so that each serving is prepared quickly and consistently without any tedious measuring. When the shrimp is done, each one is placed on the inside end of five toasted Italian bread slices (you can also use a French baguette) and a delicious sauce is poured over the top. I've included diced roma tomato here as an optional garnish, since one Olive Garden used it, but another location on the other side of town did not. As for the shrimp, use medium-size (they're called 31/40) that are already peeled, but with the tails left on. Butterfly the shrimp by slicing almost all the way through the middle. As the shrimp cooks, they will curl and spread open.
For years now I've been on the lookout for a great chain restaurant crème brulee to clone for one of my books, but I hadn't located a really fantastic formula to hack until I tried this one. The Capital Grille's Classic Crème Brulee is a perfect blend of sweet and creamy with amazing flavor that comes from real vanilla bean. If you want an easy dessert to impress that you can prepare a day or two in advance of the sit-down, this is your recipe. When it comes time to serve the brulee, sprinkle each serving with a little white sugar and caramelize it with a small chef's torch (if you don't already have one, you can find them online or at kitchen stores for around 15 bucks). Add a garnish of fresh seasonal berries plus a sprig of mint, and serve up the goodness.
In 2001 this West Coast chain came up with a great idea: clone the type of burger you'd get at a casual restaurant chain such as Chili's or T.G.I. Friday's for around six bucks, but sell it for just $3.95. It's 1/3 pound of ground beef stacked on top of plenty of fixings, including red onion and those sweet-tasting bread-and-butter pickle slices. And the cost of a Six Dollar Burger gets even lower when you make your own version at home. How does less than two bucks grab ya?
Menu Description: "A spicy Thai dish with the flavors of curry, peanut, chili, and coconut. Sauteed with vegetables and served over rice."
This dish ranks very high among the most frequent entree clone requests from this growing chain's huge menu, and anyone who is a fan of Thai dishes falls in love with it. I dig recipes that include scratch sauces that can be used with other dishes. The curry and peanut sauces here are good like that. They can, for example, be used to sauce up grilled skewers of chicken or other meats, or as a flavorful drizzle onto lettuce wraps. But even though I've included the peanut sauce recipe from scratch here, you can take the quick route and save a little prep time by picking up a pre-made sauce found near the other Asian foods in the market. Since the sauce is used sparingly in a drizzle over the top of this dish it won't make a big difference which way you go. This recipe produces two Cheesecake Factory-size servings—which is another way of saying "huge." If your diners aren't prepared to process the gargantuan gastronomy and you're all out of doggie bags, you can easily split this recipe into four more sensible portions.
In March 1988 the first McDonald's in Belgrade,Yugoslavia, set an all-time opening-day record by running 6,000 people under the arches. In early 1990, when a Moscow McDonald's opened, it became the busiest in the world by serving more than 20,000 people in just the first month of operation. The McDonald's Rome franchise racks up annual sales of more than $11 million. And in August of 1992, the world's largest McDonald's opened in China. The Beijing McDonald's seats 700 people in 28,000 square feet. It has over 1,000 employees, and parking for 200 employee bicycles. McDonald's outlets dot the globe in fifty-two countries today, including Turkey, Thailand, Panama, El Salvador, Indonesia, and Poland. About 40 percent of the McDonald's that open today stand on foreign soil—that's more than 3,000 outlets.
Back in the United States, McDonald's serves one of every four breakfasts eaten out of the home. The Egg McMuffin sandwich was introduced in 1977 and has become a convenient breakfast-in-a-sandwich for millions. The name for the sandwich was not the brainstorm of a corporate think tank as you would expect, but rather a suggestion from ex-McDonald's chairman and CEO Fred Turner. He says his wife Patty came up with it.
You will need an empty clean can with the same diameter as an English muffin. A 6 1/2 ounce tuna can works well.
The PSL is doing A-OK at Starbucks. In 2018, Starbucks moved the release of its seasonal Pumpkin Spice Latte from September to August in anticipation of record sales for the 15-year-old product. According to Nation’s Restaurant News, consumers in 2017 “visited PSL establishments twice as many times as typical patrons,” most likely because they know the drinks are around for only a short time.
The trick when hacking this Starbucks superstar is making a perfect clone of the syrup used in the drink. I found a friendly barista who was willing to squirt a little of the secret syrup into a cup for me to take back to headquarters for examination. Back in the kitchen I discovered the mysterious light orange-colored syrup had no spice particles in it whatsoever, meaning the flavors are added as extracts or oils. Most home cooks like you and me cannot get such ingredients, so I had to come up with a formula using easily accessible ground spices and pumpkin puree.
Pumpkin pie spice makes this recipe easy and much cheaper than buying all the spices separately. It’s a convenient blend of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, plus either allspice or clove, and it’s found in practically all food stores. For our hack, the blend is combined with a sugar solution and cooked until syrupy, then sweetened condensed milk is stirred in. Condensed milk is also used in the original syrup at Starbucks—according to the ingredients list—which is why the syrup is opaque and creamy. When the syrup is done, a couple tablespoons are added to your latte, then it’s topped off with whipped cream and a sprinkling of more spice.
Lattes are made with espresso, and in this case you’ll need a double shot, which is about ¼ cup. If you can’t make espresso, then make some strong coffee and use ½ cup of it. If you don’t have a way to steam milk, you can heat it up in the microwave for 2 minutes or until hot, then make it foamy with a milk foamer, inversion blender, or whisk.
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This limited-time-only new product from the country’s biggest Mexican fast food chain is easy to make with bagged fries found in the freezer section, and you can make as many or as few as you want at one time since there is more than enough seasoning and cheese sauce for one 2-pound bag. Get Ore-Ida Golden Fries if you can find them, and if you want a good clone you really should fry them, although baking works too. The secret spicy ingredient in the nacho cheese sauce is brine from the bottled jalapeno nacho slices, plus a little cayenne for extra boom. And if you’re feeling creative, you can make a fry holder like the one Taco Bell serves the fries in by cutting the top off a paper cup. You can also cut the bottom off another paper cup and use it to hold the sauce.
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Banking on the popularity of the chain's Cheddar Bay Biscuits, Red Lobster chefs created this pizza-shaped appetizer with a crust made from the biscuit dough, and crab and Cheddar cheese baked on top. If you like those tender, cheesy garlic biscuits that come with every meal at Red Lobster—and you like crab—then you'll definitely like this.
One of top choices for your salad at this popular Mexican chain is this delicious, slightly spicy chipotle-flavored dressing. A clone for this one is made easily by combining several ingredients in small pan over medium heat and simmering for 5 minutes. The final step involves creating an emulsion to thicken the dressing and to keep the oil from separating. I suggest measuring the oil into a spouted measuring cup. This will make it easy to drizzle the oil in a thin stream into the dressing while you are rapidly whipping the mixture with a wire whisk. If you break a sweat, you’re doing it right.
You may notice that there is no jalapeño mentioned in this recipe. Chipotle is a smoke dried jalapeño. We'll use ground chipotle chili found near the spices in your market.
Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.
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Menu Description: "Tender, select-cut pork spare ribs basted with our special-recipe sauce. Nothing could be finer..."
This smoky sauce is perfectly sweetened with honey and molasses, and it bites just a bit with pepper sauce. Smother pork spareribs, baby back ribs and beef ribs with the sauce, as they do at the restaurant. Use the cooking technique from here to make the ribs.
Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes by Todd Wilbur.
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If you like the flavor of Taco Bell's sauce but don't like the burn, this is the sauce for you. It used to be that you could only get this sauce in the little blister packs from Taco Bell restaurants, but now the chain has partnered with Kraft Foods to sell the stuff in 7.5-ounce bottles in supermarkets. For the record, those bottles of hot sauce will set you back around $1.59 at the store, while the 6-ounce can of tomato paste required for this recipe is only 59 cents—and you end up with more than three times the amount of sauce.
Taco Bell had very little luck with light menu items over the years. In 1983 the Mexican fast-food chain introduced Taco Light, a taco with a fried flour tortilla shell. But the fried flour tortilla that replaced the traditional corn tortilla only made the taco light in weight and color; not in fat or calories. The item was quickly discontinued. In 1995, the chain tried again with Light Line, a selection of several lower-fat menu items. Those items were also quickly nixed from the menu boards due to poor sales.
When we cook at home, though, we often like to make a meal better on the waistline, especially if it takes no extra effort and the food still tastes good. This recipe will show you how to do just that: knock the fat way down—from ten grams to just two grams—without compromising flavor. Check it out.
Nutrition Facts Serving size–1 taco Total servings–6 Calories per serving–172 (Original–213) Fat per serving–2g (Original–10g)
When we cook at home, and want to clone the flavor of food like Taco Bell's, it takes no extra effort to make the meal significantly lower in fat than what you get at the restaurant. Why not give this recipe a go? You'll soon find out these tacos taste just like the soft tacos you get from the world's largest Mexican food chain, but with only one-quarter of the fat. Nutrition Facts Serving size–1 taco Total servings–5 Calories per serving–170 (Original–225) Fat per serving–3g (Original–12g)
Here's a hack for a new menu item at Tony Roma's that's served alongside the Carolina Honeys BBQ Salmon. Combine maple syrup, cinnamon and pecans with sweet potatoes and you've got an irresistable side dish just like the popular restaurant side.
With the sweet, sour, spicy and salty flavors that are traditional to Thai cuisine, tom ka gai soup is a party on your palate. It's a dish that I've been wanting to hack for years, but could not find a famous chain with a popular version. That is until recently, when Trader Vic's landed in Las Vegas at the Planet Hollywood Hotel and Casino. This upscale, worldwide Polynesian-themed chain adds eggplant to this soup where you would traditionally find straw mushrooms, and thinly julienned peppers where Thai chili peppers would usually be. Other than that the soup has the same traditional flavors of some of the best tom ka gai soups I have eagerly slurped up. For this clone you'll need to track down a couple stalks of lemongrass—a whole stalk is about a foot long. Cut each in half and get medieval on it with a kitchen mallet so the flavors are released into the soup as it cooks. Before serving the soup you may want to fish out the lemongrass and the chunks of ginger, or you may be brushing up on your Heimlich maneuver.
In 1914 the founders of the Tasty Baking Company created "the cake that made Mother stop baking." Tastykake products remain popular today with millions of snack cakes shipping across the country every day. And the recipes have remained remarkably unchanged over the years. These chocolate cupcakes in several varieties are the company's top-selling item, with more than 7 million baked weekly.
Early in 1997 Wendy's introduced its selection of cold "Fresh Stuffed" pita sandwiches—a nice change of pace from the typical fast food fare. Basically what you're getting is a small salad wrapped in a warm pita bread. You might be saying to yourself "That doesn't sound like much for 3 bucks!" Then I would say, "Perhaps, but what if you could make a clone yourself for a mere fraction of that?" You would say, "Cool, man! Lay it on me." And then I would say, "Here you go."
Here's a way to make plenty of hot sauce just like the stuff people are pouring over the 4 million tacos served at 4,200 Taco Bell restaurants in forty states and around the world every day.
Source: More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.
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Surely when Dave Thomas opened his first Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers restaurant in 1969, and named it after his daughter, he never imagined the tremendous success and growth his hamburger chain would achieve. In 1989 Dave starred in a series of television ads that boosted Wendy's customer awareness level to the highest levels since its famous "Where's the beef?" campaign.
In the same year, Wendy's introduced the Super Value Menu, a selection of items all priced under a buck. The Junior Bacon Cheeseburger was added to the selection of inexpensive items and quickly became a hit.
In 1984 the diminutive Clara Peller blurted out in a series of four television ads the memorable phrase that would pop up on T-shirts and in presidential campaigns: "Where's the beef?" The ad was devised by Wendys' advertising agency to attack the misconception that its Single hamburger was smaller than its competitors "big name" hamburgers. The campaign was so original that it stole the show at the 1984 Clio Awards, winning the advertising industry's highest honors and registering the highest consumer awareness level in the industry's history.
Did you know that Dave Thomas, the spokesman and founder of the country's third-largest hamburger chain, got his start in fried chicken with a famous Kentucky colonel? In 1962, Dave had an opportunity to turn around four failing KFC carryouts for an ownership stake in them. Dave worked hard and was eventually successful. He parlayed his new ownership into four more KFC restaurants, and in 1968 he sold them all for $1.5 million. Dave was a millionaire at age thirty-five. A year later, Dave opened his first Wendy's restaurant, and today the chain is over 5000 units strong. Pretty good for a guy who didn't finish high school.
Here's my conversion of one of the best items on Wendy's bargain ninety-nine-cents menu that weighs in at 25 grams of fat. Let's knock this down to just eleven grams, using lean ground beef, fat-free mayo, and turkey bacon.
Nutrition Facts Serving size–1 sandwich Total servings–1 Calories per serving–310 (Original–430) Fat per serving–11g (Original–25g)
In 1997, Wendy's announced its IPO—also known as the Initial Pita Offering—on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Wendy's CEO Gordon Teter rang the bell to open the day of trading while Wendy's stock traders on the floor munched out on four varieties of the pita sandwiches, including this one, the Classic Greek Fresh Stuffed Pita.
For our low-fat clone, well cut a gaggle of grams by making the dressing fat-free, and then well use low-fat feta cheese. Following this secret formula below, you can turn what is normally a 20-fat-gram sandwich into one that weighs in with only 2.5 grams.
Nutrition Facts Serving size–1 sandwich Total servings–4 Calories per serving–240 (Original–440) Fat per serving–2.5g (Original–20g)
Source: Low-Fat Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.
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Publicity stunt alert. For one day in 1997, St. Petersburg, Florida, became "St. Pitas-burg" to celebrate the introduction of Wendy's Fresh Stuffed Pita sandwiches. Over 40,000 balloons formed a giant pita sandwich at a local Wendy's restaurant, while local residents and Wendy's staff learned the "art of eating a pita" from pita eating experts.
The Chicken Caesar Fresh Stuffed Pita was one of those pitas introduced on that glorious day. See if you can figure how to eat this clone version, made with much less fat, all on your own.
Nutrition Facts Serving size–1 sandwich Total servings–4 Calories per serving–283 (Original–490) Fat per serving–5g (Original–18g)
You've got to hand it to him. Alan Stillman thought that if he opened his own restaurant, it might be a great way to meet the flight attendants who lived in his New York City neighborhood. Not only did the dude follow through on his plan in 1965 with the first T.G.I. Friday's, but today the company is 387 units strong.
Friday's kitchen came up with a delicious blend of barbecue sauce and apple butter for coating the deep-fried chicken wings. For our reduced-fat clone, we'll re-create the same taste of the barbecue sauce, but we'll strip the skin from the chicken wings and bake the wings to cut the fat way down.
Nutrition Facts Serving size–3 pieces Total servings–4 Calories per serving–150 (Original–235) Fat per serving–6 g (Original–16 g)
How's this for coincidence: both McDonald's and Taco Bell got their start in San Bernardino, California, in the early '50s. Glen Bell opened a hamburger and hot dog stand called Bell's Drive-In, while the McDonald brothers, Dick and Mac, were just around the corner with their golden arches and speedy drive-up service. "The appearance of another hamburger stand worried me then," says Glen. "I just didn't think there was enough room in town for both of us." Turns out there was enough room—for a while.
In 1962 Glen decided that it was time to offer an alternative to the hamburger stands that were saturating the area, so he opened the first Taco Bell and changed his menu to Mexican food.
Ten years and hundreds of new taco Bell openings later, the Burrito Supreme hit the menu and became an instant hit. By making this reduced-fat clone version at home, we can knock the fat down to less than one-fifth of the original.
Nutrition Facts Serving size–1 burrito Total servings–4 Calories per serving–325 (Original–503) Fat per serving–4g (Original–22g)
Not only does the restaurant still serve some of the tastiest cocktails and mixed drinks, but T.G.I. Friday's also has one of the best selections of custom non-alcoholic drinks in the business. The smoothies and shakes at Friday's are all excellent, as are the designer sodas called "Flings." These are hand-mixed soda beverages made in a fashion reminiscent of old-time soda fountains. Juices and sweeteners are mixed with cold soda water and served over ice—you can't go wrong with one of these. The Fling cloned here uses cranberry juice, apple juice, simple syrup, and sweet-and-sour mix.
Menu Description: "Chargrilled all-white meat turkey burger, served on a toasted whole wheat bun with lettuce, tomatoes, alfalfa sprouts, onions and avocado."
Noting the success of the first T.G.I. Friday's in New York City, a group of fun-loving Dallas businessmen opened the first franchise store. The investors decorated their Dallas T.G.I. Friday's with antiques and collectibles gathered from around the countryside—now all of the Friday's are decorated that way. Six months after the opening of the Dallas location, waiters and waitresses began doing skits and riding bicycles and roller skates around the restaurant. That's also when the now defunct tradition of ringing in every Friday evolved. Thursday night at midnight was like a New Year's Eve party at T.G.I. Friday's, with champagne, confetti, noisemakers, and a guy jumping around in a gorilla suit.
Here's a favorite of burger lovers who don't care where the beef is. It's an alternative to America's most popular food with turkey instead of beef, plus some alfalfa sprouts and avocado to give it a "California" twist.
Menu Description: "Healthful, nonalcoholic frozen fruit drinks." Gold Medalist: "Coconut and pineapple, blended with grenadine, strawberries and bananas." Tropical Runner: "Fresh banana, pineapple and pina colada mix with frozen with crushed ice."
From the "obscure statistics" file, T.G.I. Friday's promotional material claims the restaurant was the first chain to offer stone-ground whole wheat bread as an option to its guest. It was also the first chain to put avocados, bean sprouts, and Mexican appetizers on the menu.
Also a first: Friday's Smoothies. In response to growing demand for nonalcoholic drinks, T.G.I. Friday's created smoothies. Here are recipes to clone two of the nine different fruit blend varieties.
Menu Description: "Sliced Portobello mushrooms between layers of Provolone & Monterey Jack cheeses, roasted onions and tomatoes on grilled, buttery bread."
Contestants on the November 1, 2006 episode of Top Chef on Bravo were challenged to take a childhood favorite dish and update it with a twist. Friday's Senior Executive Chef Stephen Bulgarelli sat at the judges table and endured a bizarre wonderland mushroom plate, a sloppy cheese steak sandwich, and an over-salted surf and turf tragedy. Finally, it was the delicious variation on a grilled cheese sandwich created by Betty Fraser that took the top spot. As a reward, Betty's sandwich was added to over 500 Friday's menus across the country, and now we have a Top Secret clone to easily recreate the tasty winner at home. Friday's modified Betty's recipe to make it easier to prepare in the quick-service environment of the restaurant, and that's the version I've cloned for you here.
In 1990 Wendy's not only added this new sandwich to its growing menu, but also added more international restaurants to the chain, including stores in Indonesia, Greece, Turkey, and Guatemala. Wendy's now claims more than 4,000 outlets around the world, with more than $3 billion in sales.
This is an excellent sandwich if you like grilled chicken, and it contains only nine grams of fat, if you're counting.
Over 5,000 Wendy's restaurants around the world serve the hamburger with the square patty that hangs over the edge of the bun. It's the burger that inspired the 1984 award-winning ad campaign with a little old lady crying out, "Where's the beef?" This secret recipe to create a lower-fat clone of the famous burger asks the question, "Where's the fat?" By using super-lean ground beef, fat-free mayonnaise, and fat-free cheese, we have cut the fat to less than half of what is in the original. Now you can have two cloned burgers for less than the fat found in one original.
Nutrition Facts Serving size–1 sandwich Total servings–1 Calories per serving–335 (Original–420) Fat per serving–10g (Original–21g)
This easy muffin clone is modeled after the low-fat product found in the freezer section of your market, from one of the first brands to make low-fat food hip and tasty. Muffins are notorious for their high fat content, but in this recipe mashed banana adds flavor and moistness to the muffins to replace the fat. Now you can satisfy a muffin craving without worrying about fat grams.
Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.
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You may not know that the delicious "pizzas" you get from the world's largest Mexican food chain have 36 grams of fat. If you like Taco Bell's Mexican Pizza as much as I do, you'll be happy to know that you can make a home version with only 10 grams of fat, and fewer calories, too.
The secret fat savings come from baking, rather than frying, the flour tortillas. You'll also say "adios" to much of the fat by using reduced-fat Cheddar and Jack cheeses. I picked reduced-fat for these, because the fat-free stuff does not melt well when the pizza is baked.
Nutrition Facts Serving size–1 pizza Total servings–4 Calories per serving–427 (Original–570) Fat per serving–10g (Original–36g)
Source: Top Secret Recipes Lite by Todd Wilbur.
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Weight Watchers was one of the first companies to introduce low-fat foods to supermarket freezer sections. The earlier items were mostly meals, such as dinners and lunch items. In 1980 the company began offering a selection of low-fat desserts, which gained in popularity because they didn’t taste low-fat. More recent favorites are these small chocolate-frosted, crème-filled éclairs, developed in 1993. They are sold frozen, and can be defrosted at room temperature in about an hour.
The clone recipe here is designed so that you don’t need a special pastry bag to make the shells, or to fill them with the delicious, custard-like combination of fat-free vanilla pudding and Dream Whip. It’s an éclair recipe you won’t find anywhere else, and it’s guaranteed to satisfy your most fierce desserts craving.
Nutrition Facts Serving size–1 éclair Total servings–9 Calories per serving–160 Fat per serving–4g
Source: Top Secret Recipes Lite by Todd Wilbur.
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Since it was founded in 1914, the Tasty Baking Company has continued to uphold its policy of controlled distribution to ensure freshness of its products. The company delivers only what it will sell promptly and removes cakes from the stores after just a few days in an effort to keep them from becoming stale.
As the years went by and delivery efficiency improved, transportation routes expanded from Philadelphia to new England, the Midwest, and the South. Mixing, baking, wrapping, and packaging of the products have changed from hand operations to sophisticated automated ones, cutting the production cycle from twelve hours to forty-five minutes.
Peanut Butter Kandy Kakes made their debut in the early 1930s as Tandy Takes. The name was eventually changed. Tastykake claims you could make almost 8 million peanut butter sandwiches with the quantity of peanut butter used in Kandy Kakes each year.
Source: Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.
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The Classic Greek Pita used the same salad base and dressing as the clone for the Chicken Caesar Pita, but replaces the chicken and Parmesan with a Greek topping that's a breeze to make. Even though Wendy's uses a pocketless pita that can be tough to find in stores, you can use the more common pocketed pita, just without opening the pocket. Instead, you heat up the pita, then fill up the center and fold it like a soft taco.
In 1914 Pittsburgh baker Philip J. Baur and Boston egg salesman Herbert T. Morris decided there was a need for prewrapped, fresh cakes in local grocery stores. The two men coined the name Tastykake for their new treats and used only the finest ingredients, delivered fresh daily to their bakery.
The founders standards of freshness are maintained to this day. Tastykakes baked tonight are on the shelves tomorrow. That philosophy has contributed to substantial growth for the Tasty Baking Company. On its first day the firm's sales receipts totaled $28.32, and today the company boasts yearly sales of more that $200 million.
Among the top-selling Tastykake treats are the Butterscotch Krimpets, first created in 1927. Today, approximately 6 million Butterscotch Krimpets are baked every week.
Source: Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur
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You probably don't need me to tell you that traditional chicken wings have significant fat and calories. In most cases, the wings are deep-fried in hot oil, the skin is left on the chicken, and then they are smothered in a spicy sauce that is usually around half butter. Good stuff for sure, but sometimes you might want to take a break from the fat. So then, how can we reduce the fat in a clone recipe for what has become one of the most popular chicken wings around without compromising the flavor and everything else that makes the Hooters version so great?
First of all, we must broil and bake them instead of using the traditional frying method. As the wings broil we keep the skin on so that the meat won't dry out. Once the wings have cooled a little, we take off the skin and replace it with a seasoned breading and a light coating of cooking spray. We bake the wings until they're golden brown, smother them with a spicy wing sauce that's made with a light butter-flavored spread rather than butter, and, voila—a Hooters Buffalo Chicken Wing clone that weighs in at around one-third the fat of the original version.
Nutrition Facts: Serving size–5 pieces Total servings–2 Calories per serving–210 (Original–471) Fat per serving–10g (Original–30g)
It was a heart attack that inspired Charles M. Harper of ConAgra Foods to come up with a new product line. In 1988, the Healthy Choice brand introduced frozen dinners with reduced fat, sodium, and cholesterol. Hundreds of other products followed through the '90s, including this fat-free pasta sauce, which hit stores in 1992. It's a cinch to make and goes great on any pasta, pizza, or meatball sandwich.
Nutrition Facts Serving size–1/2 cup Total servings–5 Calories per servings–50 Fat per serving–0g
With over 150 locations in 24 states, Jamba Juice is one of the top smoothie chains in the country. And yes, these smoothies are big, so rustle up a 24-ounce cup, or get ready to share. Here are clones for six of the favorites from Jamba Juice's big list of fruity smoothies: Banana Berry, Orange-A-Peel (photo), Citrus Squeeze, Cranberry Craze, Peach Pleasure, and Strawberries Wild.
Menu Description: "Select pork, hickory-smoked then hand-pulled, so it's tender and juicy. 'An old Southern delicacy' with our famous vinegar-based bar-b-que sauce. Served with fries, ranch beans and homemade coleslaw."
Take a big honkin' bite out of one of these and you'll soon know why it's the Hard Rock Cafe's most popular sandwich. The pork is hickory smoked for 10 hours, but since we're impatient hungry people here, we'll cut that cooking time down to under 4 hours using a covered grill and carefully arranged charcoal. Just sprinkle wet hickory chips over the hot charcoal arranged around the inside edge of a grill (such as a round Weber), and let the smoking begin. You can certainly use an actual smoker if you've got one, and go the full 10 hours. You should try to make your cabbage a day ahead of time so it has time to marinate.
Menu Description: "Hearty grains, wholesome oats, almonds and English walnuts."
Wholesome grains and nuts get it on in this clone for the signature pancakes from the country's largest pancake chain. The whole wheat flour and oats add more flavor, while the nuts pitch in for a crunch in every bite. Take a break from gummy, bland traditional pancakes. Make a breakfast that pacifies your pancake urge, and leaves you feeling peppy.
Menu Description: "Fresh ripe bananas in our rich vanilla cream, topped with fresh whipped cream or fluffy meringue."
Bakers get to work by 5 a.m. at Marie Callender's to begin baking over 30 varieties of pies. Huge pies. Pies that weigh nearly three pounds apiece. The fresh, creamy, flaky delicious pies that have made Marie Callender's famous in the food biz. On those mornings about 250 pies will be made at each of the 147 restaurants. Modest, I suppose, when compared with Thanksgiving Day when the stores can make up to 3,500 pies each.
For now though, we'll start with just one—banana cream pie with flaky crust, whipped cream, and slivered almonds on top. This recipe requires that you bake the crust unfilled, so you will have to use a pie weight or other oven-safe object to keep the crust from puffing up. Large pie weights are sold in many stores, or you can use small metal or ceramic weights (sold in packages). Or place dried beans on the crust which has first been lined with aluminum foil or parchment paper.
At one point Mars, Inc. chose to capitalize on the companys best-selling candy bar, and called this one Snickers Munch Bar. I think that may have been confusing to consumers who expected to open the wrapper and find something inside resembling a Snickers bar. Other than the abundance of peanuts in this butter toffee brittle, this candy bar is nothing like Snickers. It is, however, an awesome peanut brittle that's super-easy to clone. The original is made with only six ingredients: peanuts, sugar, butter, corn syrup, salt, and soy lecithin. The soy lecithin is an emulsifier used here for texture, but this ingredient is hard to find, and we really don't need it for a good clone. Use a candy thermometer to bring the mixture of sugar, butter, and corn syrup up to 300 degrees F, then pour it over warmed, salted peanuts. When the candy has cooled, break it into chunks and you will have created the equivalent of 12 bars of the addicting original.
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On a trip through Maine I saw an sign advertising a lobster sandwich at the world's most famous hamburger chain. Lobster at McDonalds? I just had to get a closer look. When I got inside a woman behind the counter told me that the sandwich is served only at select McDonald's locations, mostly in Maine, for a limited-time only during the summer months. So I ordered one and sat down in the dining room to examine it. When I opened up the wrapper I found chilled fresh lobster chunks tossed in mayonnaise and piled on a hoagie roll with a leaf of lettuce—it's McDonald's version of a lobster roll. I took a bite and it tasted pretty darn good. I ate the whole thing, ordered another one, and got back on the road. Driving off I thought about how strange it was to eat lobster at McDonald's.
In 1946, twenty-five-year-old S. Truett Cathy and his younger brother Ben, opened a restaurant called The Dwarf House in Hapeville, Georgia. In the early sixties Cathy began experimenting with different seasonings and a faster cooking method for his original chicken sandwich. The finished product is the famous pressure-cooked chicken sandwich now served at all 460 Chick-fil-A outlets in thirty-one states.
Annual sales for the chain topped $324 million in 1991. That makes Chick-fil-A the fourth largest fast-food chicken restaurant in the world. And Cathy still adheres to the deeply religious values that were with him in the days of the first Dwarf House. That is why you won't find any Chick-fil-A restaurants open on Sundays.
This salad was one of the first six selections offered when Chili's Guiltless Grill premiered on the chain's menu in 1993. You'll love the Southwestern flavors in this delicious and healthy salad clone. The marinated grilled chicken has a sweet, smoky taste, and the pico de gallo lends a nice zip to the dish. Top it all off with irresistible Southwest dressing and you'll have a meal-size salad that comes in at only 5 grams of fat.
Nutrition Facts Serving size–1 salad Total servings–2 Calories per serving–558 Fat per serving–5g
Menu Description: "A grilled tilapia fillet brushed with a sweet and spicy glaze and garnished with red chili tapenade, cilantro and sesame seeds."
Here's a great way to prepare that next batch of fresh fish fillets when you're contemplating a new taste. If you and your diners love spicy food this is the perfect clone, since the top secret glaze and tapenade recipes I've included here both come packing heat. You can make the sauces several hours—or even days—ahead of time, and then when you're ready to eat, the fish will cook up in less than 10 minutes. Chili's calls this "grilled" tilapia on the menu, but don't expect to find grill marks on the fish. It appears the restaurant uses a flat griddle or saute pan to cook the fish, since the tender tilapia would fall through the grate on a barbecue grill. Don't limit this recipe to tilapia. The intense glaze and tapenade will perk up a variety of fish fillets, from sea bass to salmon.
For two years after the first Olive Garden restaurant opened in 1982, operators were still tweaking the restaurant's physical appearance and the food that was served. Even the tomato sauce was changed as many as 25 times. It's that sort of dedication that creates fabulous dishes like this popular soup. It blends the flavors of potatoes, kale, and Italian sausage in a slightly spicy chicken and cream broth.
Menu Description: "Grilled Bread Topped with Fresh Chopped Tomato, Red Onion, Garlic, Basil and Olive Oil."
In 1972, Oscar and Evelyn Overton moved from Detroit to Los Angeles to build a wholesale bakery that would sell cheesecakes and other high-quality desserts to local restaurants. Business was a booming success, but some restaurants balked at the high prices the bakery was charging for its desserts. So, in 1978, the couple's son David decided to open a restaurant of his own—the first Cheesecake Factory restaurant—in posh Beverly Hills. The restaurant was an immediate success and soon David started an expansion of the concept. Sure, the current total of 20 restaurants doesn't seem like a lot, but his handful of stores earns the chain more than $100 million in business each year. That's more than some chains with four times the number of outlets rake in.
Bruschetta is one of the top-selling appetizers at the restaurant chain. Bruschetta is toasted bread flavored with garlic and olive oil, broiled until crispy, and then arranged around a pile of tomato-basil salad in vinaigrette. This salad is scooped onto the bruschetta, and then you open wide. This version makes five slices just like the dish served at the restaurant, but the recipe can be easily doubled.
Tony Roma had already been in the restaurant business for many years when he opened Tony Roma's Place in North Miami, Florida in 1972. This casual diner featured food at reasonable prices, nightly live entertainment and the house specialty: baby back ribs. Soon, customers were traveling from miles away to get a taste of the succulent, mouth-watering ribs. One rib-lover came from Texas in 1976: Clint Murchison, Jr., a Texas financier and owner of the Dallas Cowboys. After sampling the baby backs, and claiming they were the best he'd ever tasted, he struck up a deal with Tony to purchase the majority of the U.S. rights to the company and planned for a major expansion.
The famous barbecue ribs served at the restaurant have been judged the best in America at a national rib cook-off and have won more than 30 awards at other state and local competitions. The secret to the tender, melt-in-your-mouth quality of the ribs at Tony Roma's is the long, slow-cooking process. Here is the Top Secret Recipes version of the cooking technique.
The sauce cloned here is the sauce the made the chain famous—Tony Roma's serves it on their Original Baby Back Ribs. This version of the sauce uses a ketchup base, vinegar, dark corn syrup and a bit of Tabasco. The chain uses their sauce on baby back ribs and has started selling it by the bottle in each restaurant. Now you can make a version of your own that is less costly than the bottled brand, and can be used on any cut of ribs, or even chicken. Check out two other sauce recipes here.
Menu Description: "Loaded with cheddar cheese and bacon. Served with sour cream and chives."
Perfume salesman Alan Stillman was a single guy in New York City in 1965, looking for a way to meet women who lived in his neighborhood. He figured out a way to get their attention: buy a broken-down beer joint in the area, jazz it up, an call it "The T.G.I.F." to attract the career crowd. Within a week, police had barricaded the area to control crowds flocking to Alan's new restaurant. The restaurant made $1 million in its first year—a lot of dough back then. Soon restaurateurs across the country were imitating the concept.
In 1974 T.G.I. Friday's invented an appetizer that would also be copied by many in the following years. Potato skins are still the most popular item on the T.G.I. Friday's menu, with nearly 4 million orders served every year. The recipe has the added benefit of providing you with leftover baked potato ready for mashing.
The T.G.I. Friday's chain engineered a system-wide rejuvenation by upgrading the look of the restaurants and replacing many old menu items with new, creative dishes including several Atkins-approved low-carb selections. Though not low-carb (because of the potatoes) this new menu addition is still a healthy entree choice, and the presentation is cool with the dish coming to your table in a sizzling iron skillet just like fajitas. This clone re-creates that same sizzling presentation in a large serving for two. If you want to serve more, add another 8 to 10 shrimp to the recipe—there are plenty of peppers and other stuff in there so the recipe will still work. Pop an oven-safe skillet into the oven as the potatoes are baking. This way, when the dish is ready to serve, you transfer it to this blazing hot pan just before bringing it to the table. Ah, listen to that sizzle. Since this pan will be heating up in a very hot oven, be sure not to use a skillet with a plastic handle that could melt. A large cast-iron skillet is the best choice, if you've got one. If you don't have an oven-safe pan, you can always heat up your skillet on the stovetop.
Menu Description: "Our flour tortilla is packed with sauteed chicken, sausage, bruschetta marinara, bacon and oozing with Monterey Jack cheese. We coat it with Parmesan, and pan-fry it to a crispy, golden brown, then drizzle it with balsamic glaze."
Italy meets Mexico in this new hit appetizer that combines a cheese-filled tortilla with ingredients you wouldn't usually find inside a quesadilla, including Friday's bruschetta marinara. Parmesan cheese is crusted on the outside of the tortilla, and the balsamic glaze drizzle is the perfect finishing touch. This is an awesome party dish appetizer since the whole recipe makes 4 quesadillas that can each be sliced into as many as 8 pieces.
For years Taco Bell customers had only the "mild" and "hot" varieties of free taco sauce blister packs to choose from to kick up their fistful of tacos. That is, until a recent addition to the hot sauce selection bumped the heat-o-meter up a few notches. True chili heads might find this sauce mild when compared with the glut of extreme pepper sauces on the market today, but it's definitely a recipe that improves on the Mexican fast-food chain's original hot sauce formula.
Source: Even More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.
