Julee Cunningham had always wanted to enter the Pillsbury Bake-Off.
In fact, she’d been dreaming, thinking and talking about it for nearly 30 years when, last year, she finally submitted a recipe.
It paid off.
Pillsbury’s judges have selected the Everett woman to compete for a $1 million grand prize in the 44th biennial cooking contest.
“I just can’t believe it,” said Cunningham, a corporate communications officer for the Snohomish County PUD. “I’m having fun with it already.”
In April, Pillsbury will fly Cunningham to Orlando, Fla., where she will compete with 99 other home cooks with her original recipe for pecan-sweet potato appetizers. Her lodging and meals will be covered and she’ll receive a GE microwave.
Pillsbury won’t release the finalists’ recipes until January and, because of contest rules, Cunningham couldn’t share many details about her creation, except that her “stacked ingredient appetizer” was inspired by her brother-in-law’s love of sweet potatoes during the holidays.
“Thanksgiving is about the only time I’ve made sweet potatoes and it’s always the marshmallowy kind. I really have never liked them,” Cunningham said. “I kind of was inspired by that whole thing. That’s part of the fun is figuring out. Sweet potatoes are really in. They’re good for you.”
Cunningham said she liked the challenge of the contest, which requires recipes to include at least two ingredients from a sponsor-product list.
She used Pillsbury crescent rolls, Crisco oil, Smucker’s apricot preserves and Fisher pecans from the list.
The 2010 contest categories include breakfast and brunches, entertaining appetizers, dinner made easy and sweet treats.
When trying to come up with a stand-out entry, Cunningham started off making sweet treats, but quickly zeroed in on her sweet potato dish for the entertaining appetizers category. She also entered a tuna casserole-style dish in the dinner category.
“I’m just not a good dessert person, we decided,” Cunningham said, giving credit to her husband, Glen, for testing her many recipe variations. “He’s a really good sport.
“I’m not really a baker. I don’t do the cakes. I’m more of a cook. I like to do dinner.”
Each category winner in the bake-off will receive $5,000 and an induction range from GE. In addition to taking home $1 million, the grand prize entrant will win an induction range and a $7,000 kitchen appliance shopping spree from GE.
Other prizes include $5,000 awards from Crisco, GE and Jif.
Part of Cunningham’s recipe inspiration came from reading recent news stories about cooking-contest guru Elizabeth Bennett of Mill Creek, who was a finalist in the 2008 bake-off.
Bennett won $10,000 in Sutter Home’s Build a Better Burger contest in the 2006 and, in September, took home another $10,000 in the National Beef Cook-Off.
“She’s so inspiring,” said Cunningham, who tried to pull together a Better Burger entry last year. “My poor family. I had them sitting out on the deck and I was grilling all these varieties of the burger and I never got them sent in.”
Getting all the details down in a clear, easy recipe was the hardest part about entering the contest, Cunningham said.
“You have to sit down and put some action to it,” Cunningham said. “I am certain that if I don’t win this year, I’ll be thinking about it again.”
Sarah Jackson: 425-339-3037, sjackson@heraldnet.com.
Pillsbury Bake-Off 2010
In addition to Julee Cunningham of Everett, there are four other bake-off finalists from Washington:
Adrienne Caufield of Puyallup with Mediterranean brunch braid
Joan Cossette of Colbert with orange-coconut breakfast rolls
Monica King of Vancouver with tropical chicken pizza
Susie Littlewood of Royal City with caramelized red-onion feta burgers
Learn more: See www.bakeoff.com for a full list of finalists and contest updates.
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