More Top Secret Recipes: More Fabulous Kitchen Clones of America's Favorite Brand-Name Foods

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Summary: More Secrets Revealed
Review: I love the Top Secret Recipe books!! Every recipe I have tried have become favorites.

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Summary: Second book a rip-off!
Review: I loved the first book. Made lots of great things, especially the Capt. Crunch chicken and many others that were good. This book I expected to be of the same quality. Only 1/2 inch thick and mostly candy-type recipes which require a heavy-duty mixer. Really very lame compared to the first. I won't send it back, but I couldn't find one recipe to make me stop kicking me for ordering this piece of nothing! Don't waste your money. Really silly diagrams that try to take up space, but this is a poor excuse for a book!

Rating:
Summary: Second book a rip-off!
Review: I loved the first book. Made lots of great things, especially the Capt. Crunch chicken and many others that were good. This book I expected to be of the same quality. Only 1/2 inch thick and mostly candy-type recipes which require a heavy-duty mixer. Really very lame compared to the first. I won't send it back, but I couldn't find one recipe to make me stop kicking me for ordering this piece of nothing! Don't waste your money. Really silly diagrams that try to take up space, but this is a poor excuse for a book!

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Summary: Delightful Sequel
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Delightful Sequel
Review: 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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Summary: A lot of fun, but don't expect miracles
Review: 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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Summary: Todd Wilbur is fantastic !!!!!!
Review: More top secret recipes,by Todd Wilbur is the best recipe book I have ever read and truelly enjoyed!!P I saw Todd Wilbur on "The Family Channel" on the "Home and Family" show in 1996 and again a couple of weeks ago.BR In 1996,he made the famous Reese cups and I too made them.BR There was only one thing different with Todd's version; His was so much better !! BR His was smoother !BR Therefore he made a believer out of me.BR So, now I have this book,and ordered the other two books from Amazon.com so that I will have all of the available- Delious recipe clones.P Todd not only gives you great clone recipes,but he also makes reading his books fun and exciting just to look through.BRTodd includes information about how he got started in cloning as well as other interesting personnal information.BRI have learned great tips from this book alone,therefore I can't hardly wait to get the other two books by Todd. The recipes in this book are truelly step by step and easy!BRIt is truely amazing to see what our favorite food items really consist of.BR If you want the best of food and fun;buy Todd's books !!BR Get all three!!BR You'll be glad you did! BR Todd even takes time to answer e-mail,which really makes it that much better.BRTodd is GREAT !B

Rating:
Summary: Rip Off
Review: The first book was great. This book, however, is full of things you would never make. Mary Jane Candies, Milky Ways etc..... Come on get real...

Rating:
Summary: Rip Off
Review: The first book was great. This book, however, is full of things you would never make. Mary Jane Candies, Milky Ways etc..... Come on get real...

Rating:
Summary: Tastes just like the real thing
Review: The recipes in this book taste just like the things that you get at the restaurants themselves. This guy has a great talent for exactly finding the recipes for these great fast-food items