__christie Henson Recipes

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• Part of Pillsbury's reason for starting the Bake-Off® Contest was to celebrate the many unsung heroes of America's kitchens, who hadn't received public credit for the trays of cookies, the platters of cakes and the baskets of bread that issued from their kitchens.Of course, for every Bake-Off® winner, there is still an unpublicized kitchen hero for whom the appreciation of her family is reward enough. Lily Wuebel was lucky enough to have both. When asked what he thought of his wife's $25,000 cake, Peter Wuebel said he'd always loved the cake, and "it's worth a million to me."From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off® Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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• Cooks tend to be a generous lot, and Teresa Hannan Smith makes a point of sharing the bounty of her life not just with guests at her table but with four-legged folk wherever she is. "I carry three kinds of dog and cat food in my car and feed strays everywhere I go." While she never gets the raves from her animal guests that she got from the Bake-Off® Contest judges, Teresa considers cats and dogs among the most gratifying of her diners.From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off® Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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• Did someone invent birthday candles? Christmas trees? Jack-o'-lanterns? If someone did, that someone deserves applause for introducing a whole lot of happiness into a whole bunch of lives.And who came up with taffy apples? Chocolate truffles? Pecan pralines? No one knows, but we know for sure that someone did invent the Tunnel of Fudge Cake, and that someone was Ella Rita Helfrich. She spent days of "trial-and-error baking" to come up with the distinctive treat, and her cake has become an American classic, one which hundreds of thousands of people make for their special celebrations.From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off® Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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• So much of American cooking has international roots, but a sense of what the cooking of indigenous Americans was like can be gleaned from Cape Cod resident Ellen Burr's harvest. "I love to gather wild edibles: bolete mushrooms, dandelion greens, sassafras leaves (to dry for file powder for gumbo). I pick lots of berries--blueberries, strawberries, shad berries, raspberries, blackberries, gooseberries, cranberries, elderberries, rosehips, rum cherries, and English blueberries--for desserts, for freezing, for preserves, and for jellies. I also dig clams, gather oysters and mussels, go crabbing and fish for trout and perch." Although Ellen has devoted so much of her keen attention to native foods, she also turns to foods with an international heritage for inspiration, and comes up with hits like her Dotted Swiss and Spinach Quiche.From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off® Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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• Most people hear about Roberta (Bobbie) Sonefeld's Bake-Off® 2000 Contest win and immediately zero in on the $1 million Grand Prize she was awarded for her decadently rich Cream Cheese Brownie Pie. But Bobbie says the richest part of the experience was the Bake-Off® weekend itself, a dazzling trip she and her husband, Steve, have christened their "second honeymoon."The 2000 Bake-Off® Contest took place in the San Francisco Marriott, an opulent hotel in downtown San Francisco. "Neither of us had ever been to the West Coast," recalled Bobbie. "The way Pillsbury treated us was just great: Three gourmet meals a day plus all kinds of tours and sightseeing." An added benefit, said Bobbie, was that "all the activity had a calming effect." When the day of the cooking contest rolled around, "I was used to the idea." Didn't she get nervous? "Well, yes," she admits, "But I didn't get the butterflies bad until the night before. The next morning--once I was done baking and there wasn't anything I could do about it--I was fine. Then I thought, 'Wow, I already feel like a winner, it doesn't matter what happens next.'"What happened next is part of history: Bobbie's Cream Cheese Brownie Pie, entered in the Fast & Fabulous Desserts & Treats category, won the Grand Prize. The Sonefelds' second honeymoon became even more extravagant, as they jetted to New York City for a whirlwind round of television and radio appearances. They also went to Philadelphia to appear on QVC. Bobbie remembers New York as another great restaurant town where she had meals she never even dreamed of two weeks before.After an amazing week traveling the country together, Bobbie and Steve returned home to Hopkins, South Carolina, their full-time jobs and their family. And that's when the trip stopped being a honeymoon, and turned into a homecoming, as Bobbie and Steve returned to the loving arms of their very excited sons.From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off® Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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• If at first you don't succeed, try, try, again . . .Christie Henson volunteered an early disaster story: "One time I made cream pie and added the eggs too late. I ended up with scrambled eggs in my chocolate pie." Christie never gave up, thanks to the unwavering support of her family. "My poor father ate whatever I made, no matter how it turned out." Christie ultimately mastered the tricky arts of eclair making and converting European classics for busy American cooks--and then she captured a cash prize at BakeOff® Contest 35 for her efforts.From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off® Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.