Crumbl co-founder Sawyer Hemsley used to beg his mom to bring home his favorite pink sugar cookies, sold at a local Utah hospital by a group called The Pink Ladies. This chewy vanilla cookie, topped with pink almond icing and inspired by Sawyer’s childhood favorite treat, is now among the top three most popular cookies at the national chain, and customers anxiously await its appearance in the featured cookies of the week.

My Crumbl Classic Pink Sugar Cookie copycat recipe begins with a buttery vanilla dough that bakes slowly and is done cooking before you see any browning. The center stays slightly undercooked, ensuring that the cookie, which is served cold, remains chewy in the middle. Keeping the moist center fresh and the soft frosting firm may explain why these cookies are served chilled.

The secret to the flavor of the simple buttercream frosting is just a touch of natural almond extract, and the color comes from four drops of red food coloring. Spread it on with a small frosting knife and place the dozen cookies you make with this secret formula into your refrigerator before serving, just like the real ones.

Try my Crumbl Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chunk cookie copycat recipe here.

By sneaking around to the back of a HoneyBaked Ham store, I witnessed the glazing process through an open door. The hams are delivered to each of the 300 HoneyBaked outlets already smoked, but without the glaze. It is only when the ham gets to your local HoneyBaked store that a special machine thin-slices the tender meat in a spiral fashion around the bone. Then, one at a time, each ham is then coated with the glaze—a blend that is similar to what might be used to make pumpkin pie. This sweet coating is then caramelized with a blowtorch by hand until the glaze bubbles and melts, turning golden brown. If needed, more of the coating is added to the HoneyBaked Glazed Ham, and the blowtorch is fired up until the glaze is just right. It's this careful process that turns the same size ham that costs 20 dollars in a supermarket into one that customers gladly shell out 3 to 4 times as much to share during the holiday season.

For my HoneyBaked Ham glaze copycat recipe, we will re-create the glaze that you can apply to a smoked/cooked bone-in ham of your choice. Look for a ham that is pre-sliced. Otherwise, you'll have to slice it yourself with a sharp knife, then the glaze will be applied. To get the coating just right, you must use a blowtorch. Get the kind that is used for crème brûlée from almost any kitchen supply store. They're usually pretty cheap. And don't worry—I didn't leave out an ingredient. No honey is necessary to re-create this flavorful glaze.

Now, what's for dessert?

Source: Even More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

The majority of paper I ingested as a kid most likely came from eating these crunchy candy dots of flavored sugar. Peeling the buttons off the strips was never an entirely pure candy experience since there were always several buttons removed with haste that came with a bonus layer of paper stuck to the underside. And perhaps part of the candy’s charm was making a game out of attaining a clean, paper-free button removal.

Candy Buttons or Candy Dots were created in the 1930s when an engineer at Cumberland Valley Company in New York created a machine to produce tiny dots of flavored sugar onto strips of paper. Necco bought Cumberland Valley in 1980 and became the sole manufacturer of the colorful candy strips until the company declared bankruptcy in 2018, and the famous candies, including Necco Wafers, Sweethearts, and Clark Bar, were sold off to the highest bidders. Candy buttons almost became a dead food, but fortunately, the product was resurrected when it was purchased by Cincinnati-based Doscher’s Candies, and today candy buttons are alive and well.

A strip of the original pastel-colored candy buttons includes a combination of cherry, lemon, and lime flavors, but you can make your homemade Necco candy buttons in any flavor or color you like with this recipe using the same ingredients as the real deal. For flavoring, find the popular LorAnn candy flavoring oils and add one bottle to the pan as the candy is cooling. Get some coated butcher paper and cut it into 11x2-inch strips (or any size you want, really), and use the back end of a skewer to place your dots on the paper. After a couple of days of drying the candy will be crunchy just like the original, and with coated paper, the sugar should make a clean release for a paperless burst of sweet nostalgia.

My Necco Candy Buttons copycat recipe will make at least 1000 candy buttons, but I’m not sure of the exact amount since I only got through about half of the pan of candy syrup to determine yield when my sanity came into question. Don’t feel obligated to use up the whole pan of candy for your buttons. For three different flavors of buttons on each strip like the original, you'll need to make three batches of candy.

Click here for more of my copycat recipes of famous candy.

There's nothing like a slice of fresh carrot cake with cream cheese frosting and a tall hot latte. Carrot cake and coffee go well together. I suppose that's why you'll find one of the best carrot cakes around at Starbucks. It's moist and flavorful, packed with nuts and golden raisins. Starbucks makes sure its tasty baked goods are fresh by contracting with local bakeries to produce cakes, scones and muffins from the coffee chain's top secret specs. Now you've got your own secret specs with my Starbucks Carrot Cake copycat recipe below, that tastes like it came straight from the coffee house.

Pair this with your favorite drink from Starbucks. Find more recipes here.

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.

This menu replacement for the chain’s Stuffed Chicken Marsala offers a tasty variation on the popular theme. It features breaded chicken tenderloins arranged on fettuccine pasta with wilted spinach and sautéed mushrooms and doused with plenty of delicious creamy marsala sauce.

For my Olive Garden Chicken Marsala Fettuccine copycat recipe, I paid special attention to the mushroom marsala sauce, which I originally hacked for the Stuffed Chicken Marsala and then improved for this hack. The sauce contains mushrooms, and you’ll also need more to sauté later. An 8-ounce tub of mushrooms is the perfect amount for the whole recipe.

Give yourself an hour to brine the chicken for flavor and juiciness and 30 minutes for the coated chicken to sit in the fridge so that the breading stays put. This recipe makes two huge servings but can easily be split into four more modest portions.

Find all of my Olive Garden copycat recipes here.

Hot honey-flavored foods are having a moment right now, and Wingstop joins the party with this new hot-and-sweet wing rub. Rather than creating a hard-to-manage sticky honey sauce, the chicken wing chain wisely developed an easy-to-apply rub packed with the perfect combination of salty, sweet, and spicy flavors.

Hacking the rub was the primary goal of this mission, so when I got my wings I ordered plenty of the seasoning on the side for analysis. But back in the underground lab, my work went slowly. The overwhelming spiciness of the red pepper numbed my tongue, and I continually lost the ability to distinguish flavors to make a decent copy. I was forced to take multiple breaks, many of which included chugging whole milk, until my tastebuds recovered. Despite the slow go, I was eventually able to crack it.

The secret ingredient in my Wingstop Hot Honey Rub Wings copycat recipe is powdered honey, which you’ll have no trouble finding online. That sweet powder, plus several other common ingredients from your spice rack, will make a rub that sticks nicely to fried chicken wings after they’ve been tossed with melted margarine.

This recipe will make a batch of ten wings, like a standard order at Wingstop, with just enough rub left over for another batch of ten.

Find more of my Wingstop copycat recipes here.  

In March of 2024, Taco Bell introduced Cantina Chicken, a versatile menu item that can be ordered on tacos, burritos, quesadillas, and bowls. The slow-roasted chicken is seasoned with chilies, onion, and garlic and is often paired with the chain’s Avocado Verde Salsa, which I’ve already cloned for you here.

For my Taco Bell Cantina Chicken copycat recipe, I’ve made the process quick and easy by using a cooked rotisserie chicken, which can be found in most supermarkets and big box stores. Once you’ve chopped the chicken into bite-size pieces, combine it with chicken broth and the secret combination of spices below in a large sauté pan over medium heat.

When the liquid has cooked off, you’ll have four cups of chicken, which you can use in your homemade tacos, burritos, bowls, or whatever you’re craving.

Find more of my Taco Bell copycat recipes here.

The Italian town of Alba, where Pietro Ferrero built his pastry shop, was known for high yields of hazelnuts, a crucial ingredient in the creation of the first chocolate-hazelnut spread Pietro sold in 1951 under the name Supercrema. After Pietro passed away, his son Michele took over the company, and in 1963, Michele reformulated the hazelnut spread with more chocolate and changed the name to Nutella. Today, more than 25 percent of the world’s hazelnuts are used to make the famous spread.

A jar of Nutella chocolate hazelnut spread contains only seven ingredients, and every one of them is crucial for either flavor or form. The hazelnuts become hazelnut butter. The cocoa, milk, sugar, vanilla, and oil become milk chocolate syrup. And lecithin, a natural ingredient, is the emulsifier that holds it all together. Our home hack of Nutella looks and tastes like the real one, but thanks to Hershey, we can make our version with just six ingredients. Hershey’s ubiquitous chocolate syrup doesn’t have lecithin in it, but it does contain xanthan gum, an emulsifier made from sugar, that works great for our hack.

The big secret to a good batch of fake Nutella is getting the hazelnuts pureed into a smooth nut butter. Your homemade Nutella hack will only be as smooth as your hazelnuts are, and you’ll need a blender to do that. Once the hazelnuts become nut butter, mix them with the other ingredients in a bowl, and you’ll produce a little more knockoff Nutella than what comes in a 13-ounce jar.

Menu Description: "A 14-ounce rack of New Zealand lamb served with a Cabernet sauce."

Next time you make lamb, try this seasoning and sauce and make lamb the Outback way. The original racks are small, so if you find a 24- to 28-ounce rack of lamb, you'll get 2 servings with my Outback Rack of Lamb copycat recipe. Be sure to trim off most of the extra fat before you sear the lamb. And after the searing, don't wash out that skillet! You want those flavorful little bits (fond) in there to make the incredible Cabernet sauce that is served alongside the lamb for dipping, dousing, and drenching.

Start your meal off with Outback's famous Bushman Bread, and Blue Cheese Chopped Salad. Find all of my Outback Steakhouse copycat recipes here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 3 by Todd Wilbur.

Here's my hack of the popular side dish served with some of the entrées at the Cheesecake Factory. It's the perfect companion for my Cheesecake Factory Chicken Madiera copycat recipe, or as a side for just about any dish you're cooking tonight. Because the skin on the red potatoes is so thin, you save time by not having to peel them. I like that. Just quarter the potatoes, boil until tender, mash 'em up, add the remaining ingredients, and cook until hot.

Try my Cheesecake Factory Mashed Red Potatoes copycat recipe below, and find more of my Cheesecake Factory copycat recipes here.

Source: Top Secret Recipes Step-by Step by Todd Wilbur.

With cayenne and jalapeño peppers, these fried cheese balls bite back. They’re also the number one appetizer on the chain’s menu, so sleuthing out a kitchen copy was a mission I needed to accept. And I’m glad I did, because my Texas Roadhouse Rattlesnake Bites copycat recipe eventually worked out great. The dish is easy to duplicate at home, and, just like the real thing, yours will have just enough heat to wake up your mouth but not ravage it.

After cracking the secret to flavoring the cheese, I worked out the best technique to produce fried cheeseballs that came out of the oil with a golden brown outside and completely melted cheese inside. The timing was crucial. Over-frying the cheese balls caused the cheese to ooze out and burn, while under-frying them prevented it from fully melting in the middle. To fry these bites perfectly, the magic happens at precisely two minutes.

For the best results, use Monterey Jack cheese shredded from a block rather than pre-shredded cheese. Pre-shredded cheese in bags tends to be drier, so it doesn’t melt as well as the cheese you shred by hand. You want the meltiest, creamiest bites possible.

Try my Texas Roadhouse Rolls copycat recipe here.

Each spring Cadbury candy machines whip out 66,000 of these cool candies every hour. And now, because of the success of these chocolates with the orange, yolk-colored center, other candy companies have come out with their own milk chocolate eggs. Some are filled with Snickers or Milky Way centers, while others contain peanut butter, coconut, caramel, or the same type of fondant center as the original—right down to the colors. 

Still, nothing compares to these original eggs that are sold only once a year, for the Easter holiday. And now you can enjoy your own version at home anytime you like. With my Cadbury crème egg copycat recipe below, the final shape of your candy will be more like half eggs, but the flavor will be full-on Cadbury. 

Want to copy more of your favorite candy at home? See if I hacked your favorites here. 

Source: Even More Top Secret Recipes by Todd Wilbur. 

Update 4/11/17: I recently discovered that freezing the very sticky fondant center—rather than refrigerating it—makes it easier to work with. I made the adjustments in the recipe below. 

“Biting into a cloud” is how many describe the lightly crisp browned shell and fluffy, custard-like middle of Leonard’s malasadas. Hawaii has become known for the best malasadas in North America, but the hole-less doughnuts aren’t originally from Hawaii. Malasadas were brought to the islands in the late 1800s by Portuguese immigrants who worked on the sugarcane plantations, and today malasadas are sold in bakeries all over Hawaii. But for the best malasadas, everyone knows you must brave the long lines that always go out the door at Leonard’s Bakery in Honolulu. And that’s okay because it’s always worth the wait.

Leonard’s has been making malasadas since 1952 using a well-protected secret recipe that many have unsuccessfully tried to duplicate. The chain will ship malasadas from Hawaii to your house on the mainland for a pretty hefty fee (nearly $100), but even after following strict reheating instructions, eating a two-day-old malasada is not the same heavenly experience as consuming a fresh one. A fluffy, fresh malasada turns into a tough and chewy malasada in just a few hours. That’s the nature of fried dough. It quickly became clear that if I were ever to properly clone these, I would have to experience them fresh, from the source. So, I hopped on a plane to Hawaii.

I visited two Leonard’s locations in Honolulu: the original brick-and-mortar bakery and a Leonard’s Bakery food truck parked in a shopping mall lot. I watched them make malasadas in big vats of oil, lowering dozens of doughnuts at once into the oil with a metal screen pressing down on them so that they were fully submerged in the hot fat. I observed the process, noted the temperature, watched the malasadas come out of the oil and get sugared, and timed everything.

Back home I made malasadas for weeks, using intel gathered in Hawaii. Dozens and dozens of versions later, after altering variables such as proofing methods, mixing methods, flour types, fat types, sweetness, saltiness, and many others, I landed on this one. I believe it was number 92 out of 93 attempts.

Before we start, let me offer a few tips about equipment you’ll need. It’s best to have a stand mixer. The dough starts loose, but it eventually gets too tough for a handheld granny mixer. I’m sure it’s possible to mix and knead the dough by hand when it gets to be too much for the little mixer, but a big mixer is much better.

Also, a deep fryer is helpful. You can fry these in a pot of oil with a thermometer if you want, but it’s so much easier to regulate temperature with a deep fryer. And you must devise a way to keep the malasadas submerged so that you won’t have to flip them, and they won’t get a white line around the middle where the dough isn’t in the oil. Deep fryers typically have a basket that you can use to put on top of the malasadas to hold them down. Rather than placing the dough in the basket when frying, carefully lower the dough into the fryer without the basket and use the basket on top of the dough to hold it under the oil. If you are frying on your stovetop, you can use a spider or strainer to submerge the dough.

Try my Leonard's Bakery Malasadas copycat recipe below, and find more famous breads hacked here.

Source: "Top Secret Recipes Unleashed" by Todd Wilbur.

Menu Description:  "Chunks of Fresh Avocado, Sun-Dried Tomato, Red Onion and Cilantro Deep Fried in a Crisp Chinese Wrapper."

In 1995, Forbes Magazine named The Cheesecake Factory in its list of the 200 best small companies in America. At more than 90 stores now, The Cheesecake Factory plans to continue growing at a rate of about 11 new restaurants per year, and still does not franchise.

The avocado egg rolls are one of the most popular appetizers on the menu at the Cheesecake Factory, and it's not hard to see why. The combination of avocado, sun-dried tomatoes, and the cilantro-tamarind sauce makes this one of the tastiest appetizers I've had at any restaurant chain. 

The trickiest part of my Cheesecake Factory avocado egg rolls copycat recipe might be finding the tamarind pulp at your market. It's a brown, sticky pulp that looks like puréed prunes, and can be found in the spice section or near the ethnic foods—or try a Middle Eastern market. The pulp sometimes contains the large seeds of the fruit, so be sure to remove them before measuring. If you can't find the tamarind paste, you can get by substituting smashed raisins or prunes.

Find more of my famous appetizer copycat recipes here.

Source: Top Secret Restaurant Recipes by Todd Wilbur.

In 2024, Taco Bell brought back five iconic menu items as part of the chain’s new “Decades” menu: the Tostada from the 1960s, the Green Sauce Burrito from the 1970s, the Meximelt from the 1980s, the Gordita Supreme from the 1990s, and the Caramel Apple Empanada from the 2000s.

The Meximelt generated the most excitement in my circles, so I jumped at the chance to hop into a culinary time machine and recreate this long-lost classic. It’s a small flour tortilla filled with the chain’s seasoned beef, a melted combination of three cheeses, and fresh pico de gallo. If it weren’t called a Meximelt, you’d call it a soft taco. And you’d love it either way.

I tackled my Taco Bell Meximelt copycat recipe by first duping the mild pico de gallo with a simple combination of tomatoes, onion, cilantro, lime juice, and salt. And I made sure to dice the tomato and onion super small to match the real thing. Next, I copied the seasoned beef using my previously hacked recipe for the chain’s Chalupa Supreme and determined the ratios for a three-cheese blend of shredded cheddar, Jack, and mozzarella.

I piled everything on a warm 6-inch flour tortilla, took a big bite, and let my mouth take me on a tasty trip back to the era of MTV, yuppies, Blockbuster, and Rubik’s Cubes.

Find more of my Taco Bell copycat recipes here.

The menu describes this dish as "Parmesan-crusted chicken served over pasta with mushrooms, bell peppers, and onions in a spicy New Orleans sauce." Of the many great pastas on The Cheesecake Factory's menu, this one consistently ranks as a top choice, so a Top Secret Recipes hack was inevitable. 

Your homemade Cheesecake Factory Louisiana Chicken Pasta copycat starts with the delicious yet straightforward New Orleans sauce, made like Alfredo sauce, with paprika for color and cayenne pepper for zing. The chicken is breaded with a combination of panko breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese and pan-fried to a golden brown. 

In true Cheesecake Factory style, this recipe makes four very large servings, but you can also serve this dish on one big platter for a nice family-style feast.

Now, how about dessert? Find my copycat recipes for Cheesecake Factory's signature cheesecakes here.

Source: Top Secret Recipes Step-by-Step by Todd Wilbur.

Panera sells other cookies, but the star in the chain’s cookie display is this 6-ounce beauty packed with two kinds of chocolate, salty pretzels, and plenty of chewy caramel bits. This cookie lives up to its name, delivering a unique experience with every bite—almost like enjoying several different cookies simultaneously.

For my Panera Bread Kitchen Sink Cookie copycat recipe, I needed a cookie base that baked to a light brown around the edges while staying chewy in the middle. After accomplishing that mission, I experimented with the ratio of fillings. I sliced my cookies through the middle and compared their cross-section to the original to determine which ingredients needed adjustment. Then, I kept baking batches until my cookies matched Panera's.

To create the best clone, I found it best to measure the eggs. Since all large eggs are not the same size, I discovered that beating the eggs and measuring 1/3 cup for the recipe yielded more reliable results. Also, it's best to line your baking sheet with parchment paper rather than a silicone baking mat. Since these cookies are so big, they'll spread too much on the slippery surface of silicone mats and will come out thinner than you’d like. Parchment paper grips more, creating cookies that best resemble the Panera version.

Panera Bread has amazing soups too! See if I hacked your favorite here. 

One day in France in 1756, when Duke de Richelieu's chef couldn't find any cream for a sauce made with eggs and cream, he substituted oil. The thick emulsion that formed after a vigorous beating became one of the basic sauces for our modern cuisine. A version of this simple culinary breakthrough was an important ingredient for Richard Hellmann's salads in the deli he opened in New York City in 1905. When Richard started selling his mayonnaise by the jar at the deli, the bottles flew out the door. Before long Hellmann's creamy mayonnaise dominated in the eastern United States, while another company, Best Foods, was having incredible sales success with mayonnaise west of the Rockies. In 1932 Best Foods bought Hellmann's, and today the two brands split the country: Best Foods is sold west of the Rockies and Hellmann's can be found to the east. Nowadays the two mayonnaise recipes are nearly identical, although some people claim that Best Foods mayonnaise is a little tangier.

In my Hellmann's / Best Foods Mayonnaise copycat recipe below, you'll be creating an emulsion by whisking a stream of oil into a beaten egg yolk. The solution will begin to magically thicken and change color, and before you know it you'll be looking at a bowl of beautiful, off-white, fresh mayonnaise. I've found the best way to add the oil to the egg yolk a little bit at a time while whisking is to pour the oil into a plastic squirt bottle like the kind used for ketchup or mustard. This will allow you to whisk continuously with one hand while squirting oil with the other. You can also use a measuring cup with a spout and pour the oil in a thin stream.

Fans of Miracle Whip will enjoy my copycat recipe here. You can also find recipes for ketchup and mustard here. Yep, I've got you covered.

Source: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked by Todd Wilbur.