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| Back row (left to right): Erika Couch, Lori Welander, Kim Frantz and Roxanne Chan. Front row (left to right): Patricia Ingalls, Dianna Wara and Vicki Feldman. Missing: Harrison Carpenter. |
What does it take to win a million dollars? Eight Cooking Club of America members found out April 15 at the 43rd Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest, held in Dallas. Each of them was a finalist in the popular competition. Pillsbury waded through tens of thousands of entries to winnow this bi-annual competition down to 100 finalists, who competed in five different categories. Each finalist received $100, a GE microwave oven and an all-expenses paid trip to Dallas, where they prepared their dishes for a panel of nine judges—and a crowd of onlookers.
If you can imagine preparing a dish with a bunch of strangers wandering through your kitchen, peering over your shoulder, shoving microphones and cameras in your face and asking you questions, then you’ve got a good picture of what cooking at the Bake-Off Contest is like. It’s chaos, at least to an observer. Yet somehow most of the finalists remained cool and calm, even smiling as they prepared their dishes three times: once for photography, once for the judges and once for sampling.
The grand prize winner? Unfortunately, none of our members received that honor. The top prize was awarded to Carolyn Gurtz of Gaithersburg, Maryland, for her Double-Delight Peanut Butter Cookies. But we offer our kudos to each of our members for participating in one of America’s most beloved cooking contests. You can find their recipes, as well as photos from the contest and winners of each of the five categories, at www.pillsbury.com/BakeOff.
Meet some of our members who went to Dallas </
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