The 42nd Pillsbury Bake-Off™
The Pillsbury Bake-Off™ has a rich history. The first winner in 1949 went home with $50,000. Last week, Anna Ginsberg went back to Austin, TX a million dollars richer (before taxes) for her Baked Chicken and Spinach Stuffing recipe. I can be a food snob, but I’m also a champion of convenience food, including Pillsbury cake mixes. Despite Anna’s aw shucks tale of how she came to use Dunkables™ frozen waffles as the stuffing base, and the syrup cups as a glaze, you couldn’t calculate a more PR-worthy recipe. Could it really be a million-dollar idea? I had to try it.
My verdict: yuck. The peach/Worcestershire/syrup glaze would have been better without the syrup. And waffle sticks make a lousy stuffing base.
If you want a good stuffing base, I like Pepperidge Farm Herbed Seasoned.
I agree with your “yuck” remark concerning the Pillsbury Bake-Off 2006 million dollar winner’s Chicken with Spinach Stuffing. I was curious about it after I saw Oprah’s reaction to tasting it. Oprah looked like she would gag and was scrambling for something nice to say to its creator Anna Ginsberg. So I made it and about all I can say is it smelled good. The taste was terrible. I think it was chosen because Pillsbury is desperate to promote Dunkables. They sell poorly and maybe the Pillsbury company was hoping if the recipe was chosen Dunkables would find a new or renewed following, like sesame seeds did when a past Bake-Off million dollar winner used them.
Anna Ginsberg’s “Aw Shucks” attitude is a cover for a sly calculating mind. She’s a 4 year college grad and has worked at a top advertising firm. She maintains a baking blog that is advanced and precise. She won the one million dollars prize in the Pillsbury Bakeoff not because the Chicken and Spinach Stuffing was good, which in totally honesty is just plain bad, but that recipe has something that none of the others do. I skimmed through the Pillsbury Bake off book and all the other recipes, and I do mean all, can be made with another company’s brand…any company’s brand. But Ginsberg’s, heck nah….you would have to use Pillsbury Dunkables because no other company makes any food similar. It disturbs me too that Ginsberg pals around with one of Austin’s food editors who just happened to be one of the judges at the Pillsbury Bake-off as well. Now that’s just plain conflict of interest. The food editor, who knew she would be a judge, even interviewed Ginsberg after she was told she would be a finalist, a violation of Pillsbury’s rules according to its website, and way worse than a mere conflict of interest in my cookbook. The food editor later tried to make it seem she interviewed Ginsberg during the summer before the finalists were announced but nup, sorry, zap, wrong-o….it’s all right there on the web, easy to google and see for yourself. I think something stinks worse than Ginsberg’s concoction.
The recipe _sounded_ good until I saw the ingredients and saw it prepared….I wanted to GAG. I would NEVER try that recipe.I was baffled when she won.
Way back when, my mother entered the Pillsbury Bake-Off for six years in row. She was a fantastic cook and baker. We kids loved to come home after school and sample her goodies. YUMM! She finally won a gold bound cook book for Honorable Mention. However, her baked items would make today’s Pillsbury Bake-Off items look pretty darn bad. The spinach waffle thing, the MILLION dollar winner, was just plain CRAP.
A co-worker, male, is already bragging that he was contacted by Pillsbury on Sept 12, 2007 and told he was finalist for the next Bake-Off in Dallas in 2008. The Pillsbury Bake-Off website says finalists will be notified on or around September 30th about the 43rd Bake-Off but he insists he and a whopping 16 others, all members of the same cooking contest information site, have been told by a General Mills representative that they are finalists. He knew nothing about cooking or cooking contests. I’ve known him for 6 years. When he found out that Anna Ginsburg, the 2006 Bake-Off winner, was a member of that same cooking website he decided to join a few years ago just to see if he could win a million. He said if her absolutely awful creation could win then so could he. He won’t tell us the name of the cooking contest website, does anyone know? You have to pay to be a member. There has to be something to it because until now he hated cooking and baking. It sounds like the website might have some insider secrets going on. Why would the website members all be notified ahead of time and why so many who are members ending up finalists for the 43rd bakeoff in 2008? He said 7 members have officially posted they are finalists on the website’s discussion board and 10 others have sent emails among themselves not wanting Pillsbury to find out they are telling anyone or even wanting Pillsbury to know they are really members of that cooking contest website. I’m also curious if some rogue General Mills employee could be involved with the site. It makes sense. He or she would tell select members the inside information on getting picked to be a finalist and if that person wins money then they split it with the Pillsbury-General Mill employee. I don’t want to put my co-worker’s name here because he would know it was me writing it but he did mention that one of the finalists is someone named Norita, a name I remember because it’s so unusual. He said this is her 3rd time to go to the Pillsbury bake-off. He also said she had to warn other discussion board members to stop posting certain information that Pillsbury didn’t want to be leaked yet and that the administrators of the site did delete some posts to cover it up, all the more reason for me to believe some insider stuff is going on.
Marti Bradley is a finalist for the new upcoming 43rd Pillsbury Bake-Off to be held in Dallas in 2008. She’s been a member of those cooking contest / recipe contest sites for years and never posts anything or lets on she’s a member either. There are about three websites which charge membership fees to join and have an annual fee, too. You can google the words cooking contest or recipe contest and you will find them. The main reason many members don’t post on the websites they are part of is because other members then will expect too much of them or bully them into sharing recipe secrets. If one member gets to the finals of a contest some other members will accuse that person of getting the idea for that recipe from them. Many members don’t want the Pillsbury people and other big contest-holders to know they’re members because they’re afraid they won’t get chosen if they do. What would people think if most or all of the finalists of every cooking contest were members of one particular contest website? The funny thing is, they are.
Marti Bradley is a finalist for the new upcoming 43rd Pillsbury Bake-Off to be held in Dallas in 2008. She’s been a member of those cooking contest / recipe contest sites for years and never posts anything or lets on she’s a member either. There are about three websites which charge membership fees to join and have an annual fee, too. You can google the words cooking contest or recipe contest and you will find them. The main reason many members don’t post on the websites they are part of is because other members then will expect too much of them or bully them into sharing recipe secrets. If one member gets to the finals of a contest some other members will accuse that person of getting the idea for that recipe from them. Many members don’t want the Pillsbury people and other big contest-holders to know they’re members because they’re afraid they won’t get chosen if they do. What would people think if most or all of the finalists of every cooking contest were members of one particular contest website? The funny thing is, they are.
I have no idea who this “co-worker” is. A friend of mine googled MY name and came up with your reference to it here. To clarify (and I DO want to clairfy): YES, I did post on one contest site for our members to stop posting nasty comments about sponsors, as I firmly believe sponsors pay the measly membership fees the same as everyone else, and if they see this type of thing I fear some may pull the contest. As for anything “inside” going on – I have no idea to what you refer. As for those of us who pay to get receive updated lists of contests, the only advantages we have are: 1. We enter LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of contests, therefore the odds are we will be finalists in many. 2. Because we enter LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of contests, we’ve learned how to write out a recipe – correctly. 3. Because we enter LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of contests our minds are always thinking in that mode. We can “cook” in our minds, just as seasoned chefs can imagine what a dish will taste like before they prepare it.
We have a group chat or forum group and because of that many of us become “friends” in much the same way any chat group becomes acquainted. We share information with one another much the same way as people who belong to the AKC share information about showing dogs. Yes, experience has some advantages. But as far as our having any “insider information” I assure you we do not, never have and never will.
My integrity is more important to me than winning a cooking contest. And by the way, attending a cookoff or becoming a finalist leaves us in exactly the same position as any other finalist. From that point forward it is up to our expertise and the judges taste buds.
There is no such thing as “insider secrets” within our website or any of the many others that have been around for decades – before computers when they were subscribed to via newsletters which were snail-mailed.