Peanut-butter cookie wins ‘08 Pillsbury Bake-Off in Dallas; Lancaster resident gets “people’s choice” award

by Teresa Gubbins

Pillsbury announced on Tuesday the results of its bi-annual Bake-Off contest which took place this year in Dallas at the Fairmont Hotel: a peanut-butter cookie from Carolyn Gurtz of Gaithersburg, MD.

Her cookie differed from the usual peanut-butter cookie in that it had a half-teaspoon of cinnamon. Little stuff like that is enough to vaunt a recipe ahead of the pack. The recipe is fairly simple to put together given the fact that it relies on Pillsbury's "create n bake" peanut-butter cookie dough, to which it adds sugar, peanuts, peanut-butter, and the abovementioned cinnamon. Pillsbury can expect to see a nice spike in sales on that cookie-dough product.

One of the four Dallas-area contestants won a people's choice award, voted best by the public: Gwen Beauchamp of Lancaster, whose Toffee Banana Brownies were voted "America's Favorite."

Other winning recipes included Mascarpone-Filled Cranberry-Walnut Rolls, Apple-Jack Chicken Pizza with Caramelized Onions, Mexican Pesto-Pork Tacos, Salmon Pastries with Dill Pesto, and Blue Cheese and Red Onion Jam Crescent Thumbprints.