After a fun day at the 43rd Annual Pillsbury Bake-Off, I couldn’t wait until I got to the awards ceremony this morning to see who had won. Fortunately, the ceremony started at 7:30 am central time and I didn’t have to wait for long until the master of ceremonies (and semi-homemade cooking) Sandra Lee took the stage and started to read the winners.

Prizes were announced for each of the five categories: Breakfast & Brunches, Pizza Creations, Entertaining Appetizers, Old El Paso Mexican Favorites and Sweet Treats. The grand prize winner was selected from the category winners, each of whom also won $5,000.

I’m not going to keep anyone in suspense here. The winner of the $1 million dollard grand prize was Carolyn Gurtz (pictured above) with her Sweet Treats recipe for Double-Delight Peanut Butter Cookies. The cookies use refrigerated peanut butter cookie dough and shape it around a ball of what is essentially peanut butter candy. The overall effect is a good one, although I admit that I would try the filling with one of my regular peanut butter cookie dough recipes, refrigerating the dough and using it in place of a store-bought version.  (Update: I made a homemade version of the winning recipe!) Carolyn also won the sponsor award for best use of Jif Peanut Butter, bringing her total prize money to $1,010,000!

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Picture a huge ballroom with 100 individual work areas, a couple hundred people, a overwhelming air of anticipation and the air conditioning cranked up high. And stick a 6-ft tall, costumed Pillsbury Doughboy in the corner of the room. This is pretty much the setting for the 43rd annual Pillsbury Bake Off right before the 100 finalists come in to bake their potentially million-dollar dishes. The room is cold because as soon as those 100 ranges turn on and people start working, it gets pretty warm.

The Bake-Off is the biggest and most famous baking contest in the country. The first one was held in 1949 and was changed to a biannual event from an annual one when the Pillsbury company was so overwhelmed with entries that it took them more than a few months to comb through all of them. Opinions are mixed about the contest because participants had to have their entries meet some specific criteria and use some specific ingredients. When the contest started, the categories were things like pie, cookies and yeast breads. These days, they’re more often appetizers, sweet treats and pizzas (they change every year). Flour, butter, sugar and eggs have always been eligible ingredients, but some of Pillsbury’s best-selling refrigerated products - biscuits, crescent rolls and pie crusts, for instance - are now acceptable. To some, these convenience ingredients represent some kind of baking shortcomings, but it is important to keep in mind that the Bake Off is not a contest to find the best baker in the US. It is a contest to use given ingredients in the most creative and original way possible.

The participants in the Bake-Off are a very diverse group, and I don’t just mean that they come from different areas of the country, are of varying ages (27-72) and are from different cultural backgrounds. I mean that they are all cooks and bakers, most of whom were prompted to enter the contest to challenge their creativity and vie for the million-dollar grand prize, not because they necessarily have a great passion for using all the sponsored products. Some have organic gardens and grow most of their own fruits and veggies. Others regular work with their homemade sourdough starters. Most of the recipes here are semi-homemade with some convenience ingredients (although many took quite some time to prepare anyway), but only because that is the challenge of the contest. I saw plenty of top notch ingredients, from good proscuitto to Scharffenberger chocolate, on contestant tables when I walked around the contest floor this morning.

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April must be a good month for baking. I’m not just saying that because we stay indoors more during spring rains, but because there are an awful lot of baking contests going on this month. The World Cup of Baking just took place in France and here in the US, we’re about to see the 2008 Great American Pie Festival and the 43rd Pillsbury Bake-Off.

The Great American Pie Festival is sponsored by Crisco and the American Pie Council. Not only do they rate and review the best commercial pies in a number of categories, but they evaluate commercial (large scale), professional (smaller bakery) and amateur pies, so there’s really something for everyone. The contest is usually televised on the Food Network and the amateur pie competition is always fun to watch. The pie-makers are really dedicated and for some of the categories (especially the sponsored “theme” categories, like cream cheese and raisin, which aren’t always included in your average pie) they get really inventive.

This year is also the 43rd Pillsbury Bakeoff. Entries have already been submitted and cut down to 100 finalists. The finalists will compete next week, April 14, in Dallas, TX, for a grand prize of $1 million dollars. All the recipes have been posted online if you want to browse through them and mentally vote for your favorite.

Update: I’m going to be attending the Bake-Off (not as a competitor or as a judge, though) so expect some Bake-off related treats and stories in the next week or so, counting down to the announcement of the million-dollar prize winner.

This week, the world has seen a showcase of some of the best bakers at the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie - a.k.a. the World Cup of Baking. The international event is held every three years at Europain, a massive bakery, patisserie and catering convention in Paris. Artisan bakers - teams of three from 12 different countries - compete in small bakeries specially set up in the convention hall to see whose breads reign supreme when it comes to taste, appearance and production values. Bakers have 8 hours to complete a number of products in four categories: baguettes and specialty breads, viennoiserie (sweet pastries, like danishes), savory presentation and an artistic showpiece (not to be eaten, although edible) that represents their country in bread. Judging includes taste, production and presentation.

For years, France dominated the competition, but as expectations for artisan bread production raised all over the world, so the the quality of other teams’ products. Team USA won in 1999 and 2005. Team Japan won in 2002. This year, however, France came in first and took home the title. There is a lot of pride in winning back the title, especially as the competition is held in France. France’s showpiece included a bread model of woman, fashionably dressed in a nod to haue couture and France’s fashion scene.

Is bottled water really better than tap when it comes to drinking water? When it comes to hot water, it may be.  A recent NY Times article points to research conducted by environmental scientists that hot tap water is more likely to be contaminated with lead than cold water. The reason for this is that hot water will dissolve anything - including contaminants like lead - much more easily than cold water and if that water encounters something like an older leaded pipe or some rust before coming out in your kitchen sink, it could very well end up in your glass. The risk, which accounts for up to 20% of all lead exposure, can be increased by further heating the water, because the lead will become more concentrated as water evaporates.

The risk is minimized by using cold water, so it’s probably best not to use hot tap water when drinking or cooking, even if using hot water will speed along the process of boiling water or fixing dinner.

I’ve heard it said that the scent of freshly baked bread can help to sell a house, giving it a cozy feel and a livable aroma even when the house is brand new. I’m sure more than one realtor has tried to use it to help promote a property during an open house, resorting to a bread machine if they’re not familiar with working with yeast.

But is bread the only baked good that sells?

Not according to some research done at the National University of Singapore. There, they found that the smell of freshly baked cookies - chocolate chip cookies, in particular - makes people crave more than just a glass of milk. Shoppers who smelled cookies while they browsed were 67% more likely to make unplanned purchases, even when on a tight budget. Tests were done with clothing, so it’s pretty clear that the cookies didn’t simply make people want to spend more time (and money) in the baking aisle, either. The conclusion of the research was that retailers simply need to tempt their customers with something, and because using a cookie-scented candle in place of the real thing eliminates grabbing a cookie as a solid option, the shoppers are somewhat more likely to satisfy their desire to give in to temptation by buying whatever is in front of them at the time.