__dorothy Wagoner Recipes

__LILY WUEBEL

Steps:

• 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.

__ELLEN BURR

Steps:

• 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.

__DOROTHY WAGONER

Steps:

• Many of the recipes in this book are heirloom recipes, passed down from parent to child over many generations. However, many of us aren't lucky enough to have our own family recipes. Dorothy Wagoner had the idea of inventing her own heirloom recipe, describing the effort as "searching for a flavor to match a memory.""My father came to this country [from Germany] when he was a young man, and I was never to meet any of his family," Dorothy said. "Dad had a vivid memory, and through the stories of his childhood I could picture Grandmother's kitchen, the many wonderful things she baked and the dark, luxurious pastries that were Dad's favorite." Dorothy tried different flavor combinations, and then decided to make her dessert a pie, combining her own memories of her mother's cooking--her mother died when Dorothy was twelve--with her father's memories of his mother's pastries. "My mother was a wonderful cook, and loved to bake. Saturday was baking day, and our big old kitchen would be filled with the fragrance of bread and sweet rolls, and always pie." Through long experimentation Dorothy came up with her Vienna Chocolate Pie--a true labor of love. Since the 1959 Bake-Off® Contest, Dorothy's pie has become an heirloom recipe for families nationwide.From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off® Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.