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After 15 years of entering the contest, Maryland's Carolyn Gurtz finally wowed the judges. How'd she do it? With...pre-made refrigerated peanut butter cookie dough.
Nope, I'm not kidding: she wrapped little balls of peanut butter and sugar with the pre-made dough, and - poof! - the Double-Delight Peanut Butter Cookies were born.
I know using a Pillsbury product in your recipe was the point, but isn't this taking it a little far? She didn't even make her own dough! 1957's winner, Freda Smith, made her own dough for her Peanut Blossoms cookies!
And the other winners aren't much different. In the "Breakfast and Brunches" category, the Mascarpone-Filled Cranberry Walnut Rolls use refrigerated crescent rolls, and the Apple Jack Chicken Pizza uses refrigerated pizza dough.
I know, I know - I get that the contest has to appeal to today's working woman with no time to make their own cookie dough, or whatever. That's fine - we all take shortcuts in the kitchen occasionally, and I'm sure Miz Gurtz's But does it deserve a million dollars?
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4-17-2008 @12:10PM R said... I totally agree--when I saw "Million Dollar Cookies" I was pretty excited. And then I saw the recipe. As you said, the point is to use their products, but seriously, these really can't be that good. You would think the point would be for people to see the recipe, but Pillsbury products to make, and profit...but I definitely don't see this winning them any converts.
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4-17-2008 @3:04PM Gloria Martin said... I went to the 14th Bake-Off in NY City in
1963. Then all recipes werefrom 'scratch'
The rule was you had to use at least 1/2 cup of Pillsbury flour. I didn't win any big prizes, but it was exciting to be there. I was interviewed on TV by Art Linkletter during the Bake-Off.
I really think, though the prize money has grown greatly ($25,000 then), the actual value of the contest has gone down when it is all so 'put-together' 1-2-3 items, and poof! you've got a prizewinner. Talent, or real recipe imagination is missing.
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4-17-2008 @3:04PM KF said... I agree completely. I inherited some of the early cookbook winning recipes from my mother years ago, and it's evident they went to great lengths to create interesting recipes -- using Pillsbury Flour. NOW, it's just a whole different animal where the only winning element is how many products you can combine to make a dish. I call it the Sandra Lee Million Dollar Cook Off because that's really what it is -- Semi Homemade for the Masses. It seems anymore, the only real skill is how many product placements you can make, how clever a name you can think of, and if you can avoid burning the cookies in an unfamilar oven.
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4-17-2008 @3:04PM Alex said... Working women? Silly me, I thought boys made cookies, too. I guess I didn't realize it's still the 1950s. I happen to be a working woman who is also in school full time and has several other major obligations, but I don't touch refrigerated dough. Please don't lump us into the same category, and don't assume non-working people make everything from scracth.
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4-17-2008 @3:14PM Ellen Slattery said... Hi Alex,
I completely agree with you - my "working women" comment was made in sarcasm. I was implying that that is what Pillsbury thinks their demographic is, not that I seriously believe in silly stereotypes.
Sorry I wasn't as clear in my sarcasm as I meant to be.
Ellen
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4-17-2008 @3:53PM Kristi said... Have you read the rules? They have lists of eligible ingredients that you have to use in your recipes. I think it's still possible to limit your use of eligible ingredients to mostly from-scratch items, but even that seems a bit of a stretch.
Of course they're pushing the pre-made ingredients--price out how much you spend on peanut butter cookies from scratch vs what one of those tubs of the refridgerated stuff costs. And then assume that you're spending way too much on your from-scratch version because the big companies buy ingredients in mega-bulk quantities. They're profitable. Very, very profitable. And they get a lot of press (and blog!) coverage from the bakeoff, so of coure they're going to favor recipes that advertise their very profitable pre-made stuff.
Have sour grapes about it if you like. Or, maybe you should enter a recipe or two next year and see if you can be more imaginitive. Well, only if you're not a pro (even food-writers are not eligible to participate I think).
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4-17-2008 @3:56PM Kristen Johnson said... I wonder how it would taste if you made the dough from scratch, but used ground peanuts mixed in with the flour to jack up the peanut flavor....
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4-18-2008 @2:16PM kathleen said... I read this somewhere and thought, "I am SO going to win next year. Or at least enter."
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4-18-2008 @3:06PM Wendy said... Don't forget, the Jif Peanut Butter enabled her to ALSO win the Jif Prize as well- simple, yes- genius- definitely!
The whole point of the contest is to have something so Pilsbury can market their products, and they succeeded!
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4-19-2008 @3:44PM Karen said... Yeah..this isn't a recipe contest as much as it is a marketing strategy. She came up with the best advertisement for their cookie dough.
Considering the mileage they will get from it, it was worth the million dollars to them.
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4-23-2008 @3:49PM Lucille Copus said... I read the recipe and checked the price of the refrigerated dough. Too much money. I bought some Betty Crocker peanut butter cookie dough, made that and refrigerated it in a roll. Same results and using a coupon that I doubled, cost - $.50 compared to $2.89 for the other dough. You could also make your peanut butter cookie dough from "scratch" as they should be for a contest. I too think this is a ploy to get people to spend money on the Pillsbury ingredients and didn't think the cookies were anything special. Being from Ohio, Buckeyes are similar but have butter included with the confectioners sugar and peanut butter and dipped in chocolate. They don't need another cookie wrapped around them.
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