“Mom, can five girls spend the night Friday and will you make cookies?”
That was a typical request years ago when Alyssa was a teenager. It was during that time that I heard about the Bake-Off® Contest from Pillsbury.com. It’s not just any contest. Oh no. The grand prize in the Bake-Off® is one million dollars.
Yeah, you read that right. The grand prize is $1,000,000.00.
I don’t know how that amount strikes you, but I think there’s a whole bunch of zeros after that 1!
So I worked on a cookie recipe to enter in the Pillsbury Bake-Off® Contest for two years. I tweaked the recipe at least once every week as I invented a winning entry. Alyssa and her friends started seeing my cookies as a staple at meal time.
I just about had the cookie recipe where I wanted it when PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) took over my life (5-2010). As you know, it took everything I had just to exist with the horrible Hell that it brought to my mind. The next 3.5 years I spent a huge portion of my time learning how to eliminate PTSD from my life.
During this time period, I also had two other major life events strike me. I was diagnosed as having an allergy to all grain (9-13-2012) and the next month I moved (10-2012). A year later, I was blindsided with a lay off from my job (10-17-2013). Right after that I knew I had been healed and no longer had PTSD (10-28-2013).
As you can now see, my life and energy have been spent trying to survive several very big events. With that being said, my winning recipe was put on hold.
Alyssa and I have missed cookies since we were forced to become grain free. Every now and again one of us would state how much we wanted a cookie. Well, we finally decided to play in the kitchen and see if we could make a really good grain free cookie. I tried many recipes on the Internet and in a few cookbooks, but nothing really made either of us happy. Actually, some of the cookies were awful and we simply threw them in the trash.
Then it happened.
I made a grain free cookie that actually tastes like a cookie that had been made with all purpose flour.
No, I’m not kidding.
I thought maybe it was either in my imagination or a fluke, but when Alyssa bit into the cookie, she quickly confirmed my first assessment. This cookie is delicious.
Since that day, we have been making cookies…all kinds of cookies. We tweak the main recipe like crazy and rarely do we come up with a dud flavor. To say that we are quite thrilled is an understatement.
Anyway, I decided to keep my secret recipe a secret until I put it in my cookbook. I also decided that I need to put the finishing touches on my other cookie…the grain cookie. I think I want to enter it in the March 2015 Pillsbury Bake-Off® Contest. I truly believe I stand a better than average chance of winning the grand prize. Yeah, the whole million dollars.
I am letting you take a peek at some of the cookies that will be in my cookbook. Alyssa and I have actually discussed the set up of the cookbook too and we are both getting a bit excited about the whole thing. Of course, we move slow and steady like a turtle, but when we finally do something it proves to be worth the wait.
While you’re waiting for my cookbook, would you like to eat a cookie? Can you smell that delicious aroma?
🙂 Thank you for sharing! Now how about sharing those cookies! <3
😛 Sure! Come on over and get a cookie! 😉 LOL
looks delicious and I do hope you both win big…great post..thanks
Thanks so much Vicki!!! It’s kind of fun thinking about the possibility of having the winning recipe. I would be sooooooo excited!
My girlfriend has had terrific headaches for 2 years and is just now going into the completely gluten free foods. We use to get together and cook through the afternoon and then (beforehand) invited people to a tasting post-party. Lots of fun, but neither one of us has enough gluten free recipes to do that nowadays. Let me know when the cookbook is out. Blessings, Janet
That sounds like so much fun and you both can still get together to create fun gluten free foods! It will be a totally different experience, but still equally as fun. Alyssa and I actually laugh more when we cook than before since there are some awful combinations and flopped attempts with the grain free foods. LOL
Sherry, I don’t…oh, never mind, I don’t want to sound negative. Enter the the March 2015 Pillsbury Bake-Off® Contest if you truly believe you stand a better than average chance of winning the grand prize of a million dollars. Besides, someone has to win so why shouldn’t it be you? And it is so much fun to dream about what you would do with the million dollars if you actually were the winner! 🙂
But as for me, I stopped entering contests a long time ago. What stopped me from entering contests was when I entered a screenwriting contest right after I graduated from film school with my Master of Fine Arts. There was this contest and the winning screenplay was going to get produced. Young and full of enthusiasm and drive, I was absolutely certain that I had the winning screenplay. I tweaked my screenplay until the very last moment of the contest deadline, wanting to make sure that my masterpiece was perfect, then I drove over to the studio to hand deliver what in my mind was the winning screenplay. When I arrived at the studio I was told to go to a room and drop my screenplay off there. I happily marched over to the room and that’s when reality hit me. The entire room was piled from floor to ceiling with stacks of screenplays. I kid you not. Apparently I was not the only dreamer who thought they had the winning screenplay.
In the middle of the room was one small desk piled high with screenplays and a young man seated behind the desk looking totally overwhelmed. Knowing that they were going to announce the winner of the screenwriting contest in three days, I knew that it was humanly impossible to read all those screenplays that were covering the entire room from floor to ceiling in just three days even if they did have an army of readers.
I left my screenplay there, but I knew it never was going to get read. Such a pity, because I REALLY DID HAVE THE WINNING SCREENPLAY if only someone had read it! Well, that kind of finished me off from entering contests. To me contests are like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Some might disagree with me and say, “If you don’t enter you’re not even in the race,” but I have learned there are a lot of different ways to be in the race and your odds of winning are sometimes a lot better. 🙂
I’m so sorry you had such a bad experience with contests, Joan. 2014 was the 47th Pillsbury Bake-Off® Contest. https://www.pillsbury.com/our-makers/bake-off-contest/about-the-new-bakeoff/rules
They actually go through a lot of work to pick the finalists and eventually the winner. It’s a really big deal and they provide themselves plenty of time to sort through all the recipes. It’s pretty easy to eliminate a big portion of the recipes because they are the same recipes that everyone has used for years. The kicker is the recipe that isn’t like any other…original and creative is what catches their eye.
I’m really going to enter it and have been saying so for years. If I don’t win, well, I created a darn good cookie that I will put in my cookbook. If I win, well, I won’t be worried about money anymore. LOL
Hello, Just found your site today.
I’m reading this at the end of 2016, and wondering about the ending of your story above. Did you enter the contest? How did the cookies fare? What’s the latest on the progress of the cookbook and including this recipe? Hare you shared the recipe elsewhere or are you still in the works to distributing it.
Best regards.
No, I haven’t entered my recipe anywhere yet. I’m in the process of revamping my blog after my year off after being married and my daughter moving, posting some of my new projects, and I’m still working on the cookbook. Thanks so much for asking!