Review: Top Secret Recipes Unlocked

Summary: The kitchen clone recipe king is back with a new Top bestselling Top Secret Restaurant Recipes collection—the first book since his bestselling Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2. Wilbur takes readers behind the scenes, revealing the key ingredients in some of our favorite foods such as Starbucks’ Peppermint Brownie, Krispy Kreme’s original glazed donuts, Panera Bread’s cranberry walnut bagel and Wendy’s Garden Sensations Mandarin Chicken Salad. The book will feature 115 new recipes, including 40 previously unpublished recipes such as:

•Panera Bread French Onion Soup
•Burger King Onion Rings
•Chick-Fil-A Honey Roasted BBQ Sauce
•McDonald’s Cinnamon Melts
•Stouffer’s Macaroni & Cheese
•Chipotle Mexican Grill Chipotle-Honey Vinaigrette
•Popeye’s Buttermilk Biscuits.

Forget takeout—with these fun recipes and blueprints, all using ingredients you can buy at your local supermarket, you can re-create your favorite restaurant signature dishes right in your own kitchen for a lot less! -- Plume

With over 4 million copies of Todd Wilbur's Top Secret Recipes Cookbooks sold, I am obviously not alone in my curiosity about these books. I actually bought two of these cookbooks and gave them to my husband as gifts a few years ago. The latest Top Secret Recipe collection is TOP SECRET RECIPES UNLOCKED: ALL NEW HOME CLONES OF AMERICA'S FAVORITE BRAND-NAME FOODS. I was very excited about checking out this one because I knew it featured some Starbucks' recipes -- namely their Lemon Loaf.

I enjoyed looking through this cookbook and there were a few recipes that I definitely marked to try. While I usually try to make healthy recipes, this cookbook probably isn't the healthiest; but every once in awhile you have to make an exception! The first recipe I made was the Orange Julius Banana Julius -- which actually was a fairly healthy one. I haven't had the real deal for a long time, but I will say that this version was very good. My fussy-nut daughter even drank one, and that's really saying something.

The next recipe I tried was the Stouffer's Macaroni and Cheese. I love their frozen macaroni and cheese plus it's so convenient, so I couldn't wait to try this one. I was surprised how easy the recipe was! There were only a six ingredients needed and ones I usually have on hand. I like that this recipe didn't make a lot and that I can just freeze it and pull it out when I need it. It was really good and did taste a lot like Stouffer's!

Finally, I made the Starbucks' Lemon Loaf. It wasn't hard and it did taste good (a lot like Starbucks'), but I definitely couldn't have served it to company -- my husband wouldn't even take it into work. (Needless to say -- no photo of this one!) The center of the loaf fell while it was cooking so it was really ugly! It also crumbled a teensy bit when I cut it, but I think I might have done something wrong. I would be willing to try the recipe again to see if I had better luck!

The only thing that disappointed me about this cookbook was how many condiment-type recipes are included. Our family doesn't eat condiments so I kind of just skipped through those pages, but others might like them. In addition, most of the condiments are free at restaurants -- right?; so I can't see actually going to the effort to make them. But that's just me!

When I sat down to write this review, I decided to look at the Top Secret Recipes website. Oh my! There are a lot of free clone recipes on this site. While I couldn't find the three recipes that I tried, there were some recipes from TOP SECRET RECIPES UNLOCKED. The closest I could find to anything that I made was the recipe for an Orange Julius Orange Julius. There are also a few free Starbucks' recipes, but sadly not the Lemon Loaf. While you are there, you can sign up for new weekly recipe reminders.

If you enjoy "knock-off" style cookbooks, then you might want to check out TOP SECRET RECIPES UNLOCKED. Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy of this cookbook.


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