If you enjoy cooking or baking and wonder if that passion can maybe earn you some money, then the infamous Pillsbury Bake-Off is for you. It is one of the longest running cooking competitions and is currently having the 44th annual competition. At first it started out to promote the Pillsbury name and to see whatitem you could bake using a Pillsbury brand product. Now it has grown into an enormous competition that is known to beginner cooks to top chefs all over the world. There are several wonderful tales of those who have entered this great contest such as a Brevard County dessert distributor named Betty. She entered the Pillsbury Bake-Off along with other Brevard County dessert distributors that she worked with to come up with a winning pie recipe. After Betty entered her pie recipe that did not win, she continued to enter year after to year and loved the atmosphere of the baking competition.

The 44 year old Pillsbury Bake-Off competition has gotten so big that the winner of the Best Overall Recipe will win over one million dollars in cash and prizes. If you are one of the lucky 100 finalists to be selected to compete in the final competition, the contest will provide you with all expense paid trip to Orlando, Florida to These days the contest does not require you touse only a Pillsbury product but many other food labels and products areincluded as well. Things like Jif peanut butter, Egglands best eggs or Green Giant vegetables are just some of the products thatmay have to be included in your original recipe. As long as youhave 2 or more of the products in your recipe, then you are qualified to enter your recipe to the competition. There are 4 various categories that will be judged for the competition. The 1st is titled Breakfast and Brunches and the second is titled Entertaining Appetizers. The next recipe category is called Dinner made Easy which is obviously different dinner entrees. And thelast category in the Pillsbury Bake-Off competition is the dessert category and the most popular one is titled Sweet treats.

Last year’s winner’s recipe in the Bake-Off competition made a recipe in the Appetizer category last year. She decided to use three of the required products to make Crescent Thumbprints. It was created by using crescent dough and putting them into a small muffin pan and filling themwith gorgonzola cheese, chopped pecans, onion, apricot preserves, cream cheese and thyme. After baking these, the judges decided that this was an award winning recipe that should win for the appetizer category. Not only does the winner get a trip to compete in the final competition, but they win over a million dollars in prizes and also has their recipe published also. These are all things that continue tohave thebiggest number of entries in any other cooking competition in the world. It is also the oldest running competition having had its first one in 1949.