The 43rd Pillsbury Bake-Off took place last April 14, 2008 and Carolyn Gurtz, a 59-year-old homemaker from Gaithersburg, MD, took home the grand prize of $1M. The winning recipe is for the Double Delight Peanut Butter Cookies you see above. Carolyn also won $5,000 from JIF Peanut Butter because the product was her recipe’s main star.
The website for the Bake-Off is HERE, but I’m posting the winning recipe below as well. I’m not a peanut butter fan and this seems like it might be too sweet, but you might like to try your hand at it. I’m curious to see what a cookie worth a million dollars actually tastes like!
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INGREDIENTS
1/4 cup Fisher® Dry Roasted Peanuts, finely chopped
1/4 cup Domino® or C&H® Granulated Sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup JIF® Creamy Peanut Butter
1/2 cup Domino® or C&H® Confectioners Powdered Sugar
1 roll (16.5 oz) Pillsbury® Create ‘n Bake® refrigerated peanut butter cookies, well chilled
DIRECTIONS
1. Heat oven to 375°F. In small bowl, mix chopped peanuts, granulated sugar and cinnamon; set aside.
2. In another small bowl, stir peanut butter and powdered sugar until completely blended. Shape mixture into 24 (1-inch) balls.
3. Cut roll of cookie dough into 12 slices. Cut each slice in half crosswise to make 24 pieces; flatten slightly. Shape 1 cookie dough piece around 1 peanut butter ball, covering completely. Repeat with remaining dough and balls.
4. Roll each covered ball in peanut mixture; gently pat mixture completely onto balls. On ungreased large cookie sheets, place balls 2 inches apart. Spray bottom of drinking glass with CRISCO® Original No-Stick Cooking Spray; press into remaining peanut mixture. Flatten each ball to 1/4-inch thickness with bottom of glass. Sprinkle any remaining peanut mixture evenly on tops of cookies; gently press into dough.
5. Bake 7 to 12 minutes or until edges are golden brown. Cool 1 minute; remove from cookie sheets to cooling rack. Store tightly covered. High Altitude (3500-6500 ft): No change.
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A friend (hi, Maggie!) has been on my case for the past three years or so to join the Bake-Off. Ever since I learned how to bake, it’s actually been my dream to do so. Maggie doesn’t know this, but every time she mentions it, my heart starts to race! That’s a good sign, yes? The contest takes place every two years and if I wanted to join the 2010 run, I should start thinking about it now.
I don’t know why it’s such a scary thing for me. Another friend has already volunteered to eat all of my experiments and, at the very least, the exercise of creating and submitting the recipe should be fulfilling in itself. Aaah, I can’t think about it too much or I may just keel over! To even just be a finalist would be great. But I kind of want to have a picture of myself like this when my name’s announced:
Teehee. Ok, I’ll THINK about it.
