Sweet cheats

Imitation fuels the kitchen creations of many a home chef.

Case in point: the popularity of copycat recipes, where cooks of all abilities attempt to duplicate Oreos, Hostess Cup Cakes and other favorite manufactured foods. Cookbooks such as Todd Wilbur’s “Top Secret” (Plume, $14), series have sold more than 1 million copies, and Web sites documenting home cooks’ re-creations continue to proliferate.

For many cooks, healthier eating is a compelling motivation to replicate a favorite treat, but without the artificial additives and preservatives found in many processed foods.

“I don’t eat that much processed food and try to avoid it when possible – but childhood nostalgia is a powerful seductress even when she comes cloaked in trans fats,” says Heidi Swanson, a San Francisco-based photographer, cookbook author and creator of the Web log www.101cookbooks.com.

Because many processed foods contain trans fat (found in partially hydrogenated oils and shortening), improving the nutrition profile of a junk food can be as simple as replacing the trans fat in the original recipe with butter. The result is usually a slight difference in color and taste.

For anyone with food allergies, copycat recipes provide a way to indulge in an otherwise forbidden taste. For example, Swanson remade a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup with a filling made from Brazil nuts. Similarly, someone allergic to eggs or wheat can make the necessary substitutions to enjoy a favorite food.

“People want to make stuff they love to eat,” says Wilbur, a maverick in the clone recipe field who started in the late 1980s. “With these recipes, you know what the finished product is and that it’s something you like.”

Wilbur’s eighth book on cloned recipes will be published next year. His start in culinary cloning came in 1987, when he received a chain letter purporting to contain the secret formula for Mrs. Fields Chocolate Chip Cookies. The recipe was a hoax, containing ingredients not even found in the mall staple’s product, but Wilbur was amazed at how the letter spread, reflecting people’s desires to re-create something thought of as “top secret.”

“I tried the recipe in the chain letter, and it was nothing like Mrs. Fields, so I thought I’d experiment to make it better,” Wilbur says. “After a dozen or so tries, I had what I thought tasted like her cookies, and I was hooked. I did a Big Mac next, then just kept working on figuring out other recipes.”

Few restaurants or food manufacturers are willing to share their proprietary recipes. In restaurants, he’ll ask waiters what type of vinegar or cheese is in a sauce. For packaged foods, the ingredient list is his starting point. Two that have proved impossible to replicate (so far) are Butterfinger candy bars and Fig Newtons.

“Candy bars and snack cakes are the hardest to clone because there’s rarely a human hand touching these things,” Wilbur notes. “A home cook doesn’t have the equipment or the molds to make a Twinkie or Oreo.”

That doesn’t mean Wilbur hasn’t figured a way around that. Oreos are among the most popular brand-name cookie recipe on the Web. The least complex version starts with a box of cake mix and ends with a close approximation to the famous black and white cookies. The texture of the cookie is a bit off, but the taste and the cream filling are dead on.

An added bonus is that any home attempt at a manufactured snack already has a leg up in the freshness department. Most cookies and cakes sold in stores are weeks, if not months, old.

Although copycat recipes are about mimicking a food’s taste and appearance as closely as possible, it’s a logical step for most cooks to think about improving favorites as well. If you love peanut butter, you’ll realize a Hostess-like cupcake with a peanut butter filling is just about close to perfect. You can also stuff the cupcakes with mint cream and top with a green squiggle.

Earlier this year, Pete Wilcock, a project officer at the University of Manchester in England launched the Web site pimpthatsnack.com, which has become a wildly popular place for people to post their attempts at re-creating candy bars and cookies in much larger proportions. There are 250 super-sized projects, including a nearly 3.5-pound Toblerone bar and a 14-pound Snickers bar, all with step-by-step instructions.

Just-Like-Hostess Cup Cakes

From Todd Wilbur, author of “Top Secret” (Plume, $14), www.topsecretrecipes.com.

For the cupcakes:

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour

2 1/2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup water

3 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 1/2 teaspoons distilled white vinegar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the filling:

1 cup vegetable shortening

1 1/2 teaspoons clear vanilla extract

5 cups confectioners’ sugar

2 to 3 tablespoons milk

For the chocolate icing:

6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

6 tablespoons boiling water

For the white icing:

1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar

1 tablespoon water

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Spray muffin tins with nonstick spray and line with paper liners.

In a medium bowl, mix the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt and sugar. Make a well in the center and whisk in the water, oil, vinegar and vanilla extract. Blend until smooth.

Spoon batter into prepared cups, filling only halfway. Bake until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, 12 to 14 minutes for mini cupcakes, 20 to 25 minutes for large cupcakes. Cool in pan for five minutes, then remove to wire rack to finish cooling.

When cupcakes are completely cool, level the tops with a serrated knife.

Make filling: In a medium bowl with an electric mixture, beat shortening with vanilla extract and confectioners’ sugar, gradually adding enough milk to make it light and fluffy.

Spoon the filling into a pastry bag fitted with a 1/4-inch star tip. Holding a cupcake in your hand, plunge the tip into the top of the cake, pushing it about 1/2-inch deep. Gently squeeze the pastry bag to fill the cupcake, withdrawing it slowly as you squeeze. Scrape any filling from the top of the cupcake and repeat with the remaining cupcakes.

Make chocolate icing: In a small bowl, pour boiling water over chocolate. Let stand a minute or two, then whisk until smooth and melted. Dip the tops of the cupcakes into the icing, smoothing with a knife. Place into refrigerator for 15 minutes to set icing.

Make the white icing: In a small bowl, whisk together the confectioners’ sugar and water. Spoon into a pastry bag outfitted with a small round writing tip and make looped lines across the top of each cupcake. (Or make your own pastry bag by spooning icing into a small plastic bag, cutting off one bottom corner and squeezing icing through hole.)

Variations: Mint: Add 1/4 teaspoon mint extract and four drops of green food coloring to filling, as well as two drops of green food coloring to white icing. Peanut butter: For filling, beat 1 cup creamy peanut butter with 3 tablespoons butter. Add 2/3 cup confectioners’ sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Spoon into pastry bag and fill cupcakes as directed above. Or double chocolate: Add 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa to filling recipe.

Yield: 22 mini or 12 full-sized cupcakes

Approximate nutrition per full-sized cupcake: Unable to calculate.

Almost Oreos

From www.recipezaar.comFor the cookies:

1 (18.25-ounce) box dark chocolate cake mix

1/3 cup water

2 tablespoons Crisco shortening

For the filling:

3 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar

1/2 tablespoon granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup Crisco shortening

3 tablespoons hot water

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

In a large bowl, combine cake mix, water and Crisco. Knead with your hands until dough is pliable.

Form dough into 2-inch balls. Place on a greased cookie sheet and flatten with the bottom of a glass. (It helps to dip the glass into unsweetened cocoa powder so that it doesn’t stick.)

Bake eight to 10 minutes, until cookies are hardened.

Let cookies cool on baking sheets, then remove to a rack.

Make filling: In a medium bowl, combine confectioners’ sugar, granulated sugar, vanilla extract, Crisco and water. Beat well until light and fluffy. Form into balls and sandwich in the center of two cookies, carefully pressing down until the filling spreads almost to the edge.

Yield: 24 cookies

Approximate nutrition per cookie: Unable to calculate due to recipe variables.