"Real" Whip n' Chill - The missing ingredient
Sometime back in the '90s, I called Kraft to inquire as to the availability of Whip N' Chill. At that time, even the foodservice version did not exist. The lady that I spoke to was incredibly helpful in aiding me to determine the ingredients of the original product. She actually had another Kraft employee search through their product museum and fax me a copy of the ingredients list from an original package, so that I could attempt making my own from scratch.
Using this information, I was able to come up with a concoction that was similar, but not identical. The Whip N' Chill that I came to relish had a simultaneously smooth but grainy texture. It was this "graininess" that I was trying to duplicate. As it turned out, this texture was due to the now-missing ingredient, course tapioca flour. That is, the tapioca flour grains are smaller than "small-pearl" tapioca, but larger than normal tapioca flour.
Since it takes some time to modify tapioca starch (cook it), I only made a few batches due to all the effort required. At the time, the only tapioca I could find was standard pearl variety, so I first ground the pearls into meal, then cooked the meal. This is known as pre-gelled or modified tapioca starch.
The other ingredients that I used, in order to duplicate the original "chemically" taste, were milk, Jello instant pudding mix and Dream Whip. The pudding has a lot of gelatin and modified food starch, and the Dream Whip has all the hydrogenated and partially hydrogenated fats. Cool Whip would probably work just as well as the Dream Whip, as they are similar in ingredients.
Now, I will probably try to figure out how to synthesize a healthy version of Whip n' Chill. The partially hydrogenated fats are the unhealthiest components of the commercial version, followed by the fully hydrogenated (saturated) fats. Avoiding the preservatives, anti-caking agents, conditioners, etc. would be good too. My latest idea involves the use of coconut oil, which is very healthy, and whips fairly easy. Although coconut oil is a saturated / medium chain triglyceride, it is immediately metabolized in the liver, not stored in fat cells. I am not against using cream, but I think the taste and texture might be closer to the chemical version if I used coconut oil, as well as being healthier and more stable.
Anyway, the point of all of this was to point out that the modern, foodservice-packaged Whip N' Chill is not the same as the grocery store variety sold in years past, and it doesn't have that awesome texture of the original due to the lack of tapioca flour.
Hope that helps someone.