__julia Hauber 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.

__GILDA LESTER

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• Earlier this century the traditional woman's work really was never done. Each week required a full day of baking, of washing and of ironing. Few would return to those days, but it did leave space for quiet family interaction that many feel is unfortunately missing from modern life. "My grandmother had a hearth oven, which she used to bake bread for the week," Gilda Lester recalls. "I helped her, and she always saved a small piece of dough for a pizza for me. I wouldn't give up those days with my grandmother for anything. I helped start the fire, then when the embers had smoldered for just the right amount of time, we cleared the oven for the loaves of bread. Most of my recipes are in my head. They are things that my grandmother, and then my mother, passed on 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.

__JULIA HAUBER

Steps:

• Grace under pressure--one of a cook's most necessary gifts. That's where the saying "If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen" comes from. "A tornado alert once sent us to the basement for an hour," Julia Hauber remembers. "Everyone else worried about being killed. I just worried about my rare roast beef, and kept running upstairs to check it." Despite the approaching storm, Julia's guests arrived. "We had our first course, hors d'oeuvres and drinks, in the southwest (safest) corner of the basement...which unfortunately was the powder room." Amazingly, the roast turned out perfect, and grace was triumphant.From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off® Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

__TED VIVEIROS

Steps:

• "Then young Ted Viveiros's father passed away, his mother went to work and he had to learn to cook. "I made an apple pie--apples, sugar, crust--and it was awful. The apples were undercooked and the crust was really tough." But Ted toughed it out himself, and grew to be an innovative, no-nonsense cook. Doughnut cravings lead most people to a store, but not Ted. He was in the mood for doughnuts one night, so he just made his own. "By the way," he says, "I now make dam good apple pies, and know enough to add cinnamon and butter." Sometimes our early mistakes provide thought to fuel a lifetime of productive, and sometimes tasty, work.From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off® Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

__LEONA SCHNUELLE

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• When Leona Schnuelle captured the Grand Prize in the twelfth Bake-Off® Contest, she suddenly found herself a celebrity in her small town of Crab Orchard, Nebraska. "Everyone seems happier when I arrive, even at the square dances. They say 'Hi, Mrs. Pillsbury!' Even though I miss a do-si-do now and then-they think I can bake a dilly of a bread! And all the fan mail I receive! It's exciting to hear from all the different people with all their different ways of life, yet they all seem so interested in a bread recipe." Especially with a loaf like Dilly Casserole Bread to pique their interest.From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off® Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

__ELLA RITA HELFRICH

Steps:

• Did someone invent birthday candles? Christmas trees? Jack-o'-lanterns? If someone did, that someone deserves applause for introducing a whole lot of happiness into a whole bunch of lives.And who came up with taffy apples? Chocolate truffles? Pecan pralines? No one knows, but we know for sure that someone did invent the Tunnel of Fudge Cake, and that someone was Ella Rita Helfrich. She spent days of "trial-and-error baking" to come up with the distinctive treat, and her cake has become an American classic, one which hundreds of thousands of people make for their special celebrations.From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off® Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.