Bartlett Bake-Off finalist ready to take on competitive cooking again
Editor's note: Information for this article was gathered on a trip sponsored by General Mills.
ORLANDO, Fla. -- Amy Winters got a taste of competition, and she's ready for a second helping.
Winters, a Bartlett mother of three, spent the early part of this week in Orlando as one of 100 finalists in the 44th Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest. And while her Deep-Dish Sausage Patty Pizza didn't earn her the $5,000 category prize or a shot at $1 million and a suite of GE Profile appliances, she's not discouraged.
Some contestants enter multiple recipes over many years hoping for a spot in the Super Bowl of cooking contests; Winters scored a spot on the team her first time playing the game. Contest officials won't reveal the number of recipes submitted for the semiannual contest, except to say that "tens of thousands of entrees all get whittled down to 100 finalists."
Winters's recipe was one of 25 contenders in the Dinner Made Easy category. The four category winners were announced Monday night and flown to Chicago where they will learn today, April 14, on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" which one of them goes home with the $1 million prize.
"I guess I should get started on another (Bake-Off recipe)," Winters said following Monday night's awards ceremony. She said she's already developing a recipe for a national burger contest.
"This opened up a whole new world for me," the stay-at-home mom said. "I didn't know about this world of competitive cooking."
If Monday was any indication, Winters will fare just fine in the heat of the competitive kitchen. During Monday's Bake-Off at the Waldorf-Astoria in Orlando, she maintained her calm in the face of frozen sausage, a neighboring contestant who sliced her finger and video crews thrusting cameras and microphones in her face. She completed her recipe with time to spare.
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