When Jennifer Hunter remodeled her kitchen, she didn’t dream it would lead to a million dollars. But it might.
The Marietta resident is one of 100 finalists in this year’s Pillsbury Bake-Off contest — where the grand prize is a cool million — and she says a lot of her inspiration came from her new kitchen.
“Once we remodeled, I wanted to be in the kitchen more,” said the 37-year-old mother of two.
She submitted three recipes to the famed contest, but it was her “spiced mocha chocolate cookies” that won over the judges.
“I’m a little shocked, since this is the first time I’ve ever entered,” Hunter said.
She will compete with 99 others, including three other Georgia contestants — Pam Tapia of Sugar Hill, Mary Louise Lever of Rome and Maurice Chinn of Brunswick — April 11-13 in Orlando for the grand prize.
The Pillsbury Bake-Off is one of the most esteemed amateur baking contests in the world. The first Bake-Off, in 1949, was held at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York and winners received their prizes from first lady Eleanor Roosevelt.
The contest was an instant hit with post-wartime moms and brides, and Pillsbury scored big by making the use of Pillsbury products one of the criteria for recipes submitted.
That still holds true today. Hunter’s cookies, which take an hour to make, use Pillsbury chocolate chip cookie dough, Smucker’s orange marmalade and Pillsbury flour, and are spiced up with coffee, cinnamon, cloves and cayenne pepper.
“I fashioned the cookies after one of my favorite family recipes, minus the cayenne pepper,” said Hunter, who never really knew much about the contest until she saw an ad for it on Food Network.
You can meet Hunter and taste her chocolate-y creations from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. March 28 at the Parkaire Kroger, 4880 Lower Roswell Road, Marietta, 770-971-8801.
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