Glazed Bacon Rollups, Loaded Potato Pinwheels and 18 More Ingenious Recipes from the Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest
You may know Pillsbury for their giggly mascot, fun-to-break crescent cans, or highly necessary DIY cronut recipe. But for the past 65 years, the Doughboy has kept busy with yet another passion project: the million dollar Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest.
This year, entrants may submit original recipes that use seven ingredients or less online at www.bakeoff.com and the 100 finalists will move on to, well, the finals, this November in Nashville, Tenn. It’s all very big and impressive, but can we focus on the fact that the grand prize winning recipe is worth $1 million dollars? That’s right, $1 million. With six zeroes.
We decided to round up our favorite Bake-Off Contest recipes from over the years, including — brace yourselves — strawberry and chocolate sugar cookie crepes, glazed bacon rollups and bacon egg breakfast bites. Best part? Yes, you can totally D them Y.
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Bacon-Egg Breakfast Bites
It’s in the name: bacon and egg and breakfast. That alone should be enough to wake you up, but these darlings also feature whole crescent rounds nestled around slices of bacon and egg-washed tater tots. Ahem.
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Mini Italian Shepherd’s Pies
Warm dollops of a creamy cheese and spinach mixture top off these mini meat pies. Pro-tip: toss some spicy sausage or chorizo in there for a neat little kick.
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Poppin’ Fresh Barbecups
It was in 1968 that Pillsbury first introduced its refrigerated fresh dough. It was also the year this recipe, named after the Doughboy AKA “Poppin’ Fresh,” came out. This recipe is simple, but classic: ground beef, barbecue and flaky biscuits topped with cheese. Try using mac & cheese over shredded beef for an instant upgrade to 2014.
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Chicken Satay Tacos
Dare to dream. This recipe from Illinois swaps out your regular flour tortilla with a flattened out Pillsbury Grands! Homestyle Biscuit for quite possibly the flakiest, butteriest soft taco you ever did see.
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Loaded Potato Pinwheels
It’s almost summer, which means infinite barbecues, and endless opportunities to convince your guests to go back for seconds or thirds. And is there any better way than with potatoes and bacon? Didn’t think so… and neither did the Bake-Off Judges, who crowned this recipe the $1 million grand prize winner at last year’s contest.
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Glazed Bacon Rollups
The maple bacon combo is nothing new, but this recipe ups the ante as it’s practically a maple bacon sweet roll, so, yes please. Surprise ingredients like Dijon mustard and sliced green onions provide an extra textured tang that sounds just crazy enough to work.
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Baked Chorizo Chili Quesadilla
Part quesadilla, part empanada, this almost mash-up uses a refrigerated pie crust to house spicy chorizo chili, corn, chopped onions and pepper jack cheese. Party hearty.
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Spicy Asian Shrimp Stromboli
More fun with fusion! Refrigerated pizza crusts wrap around panko or breaded shrimp dressed in hot pepper jelly, Sriracha and orange marmalade. Just call it a bougie pizza pocket.
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Mocha Latte Bacon Danish
Coffee is crack. Bacon is crack. Chocolate hazelnut spread is crack. A semifinalist in last year’s 46th Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest, this mocha latte bacon Danish features all three. Strangely it didn’t advance to the final round. No, we don’t understand why either.
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Spicy Mole Pork Burritos
Mole? Ole! The homemade mole sauce adds a spicy punch to these burritos. Wrap it all in a flour tortilla for a Mexican inspired “concoction.”
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Mole Style Pulled Pork Sandwiches
Damn Pillsbury, is there any bread you don’t make? Featuring their refrigerated French crusty loaf, these mole pulled pork sandwiches use Jif Chocolate Flavored Hazelnut spread for the chocolate. Top the whole thing off with blue cheese cole slaw for a (nearly) instant bistro style lunch.
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Feta and Kale Stuffed Breakfast Waffles
Waffle tacos are great and all, but for the little more health-conscious, consider trading out your maple syrup and egg product for feta cheese and kale. And made with flattened Pillsbury Refrigerated Crescent Dinner Rolls, this is a total rethinking of the waffle sandwich. We’d love ours topped with pesto.
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Crispy Potato Barbecue Stacks
Do you prefer your sandwiches with bread buns or hash brown buns? If you answered the former, allow this recipe to prove to you why you’re so, so wrong. The secret is in the bread crumb topping, which provides a crispy, dry surface to wrap your messy barbecue-y fingers around.
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Greek Quesadillas
Take the makings of a Greek salad and transform them into a meal even meat-eaters can understand. These Greek quesadillas were finalists at the 41st Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest in 2004. Fun fact: Target-famous designer Isaac Mizrahi designed the finalists’ aprons that year.
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Oriental Snack Mix
This is a quick, zesty party mix using, among other things, Bugles original corn snacks, Chex cereal, soy sauce and wasabi peas. Just make sure to give your guests fair enough warning about the wasabi peas’ heat, and watch them refill their plates (and drinking glasses) again and again and again.
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Mini Ice Cream Cookie Cups
Winner of the $1 million dollar grand prize in 2010, this recipe is insanely simple, and just involves taking the Pillsbury Ready-to-Bake! sugar cookies and molding them in a muffin tin into the perfect pint sized ice cream cups.
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Pineapple Galette with Caramel Rum Sauce
Galettes are pretty much artisan-looking, free-form fruit tarts, which is nice when you think about all the extra imperfect crevices this caramel rum sauce gets to flow over.
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Java-Glazed Cinnamon Rolls
Instant coffee-drowned cinnamon rolls make for the ultimate jittery indulgence. Pro-tip: don’t feed this to children.
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Pumpkin Ravioli with Salted Caramel Whipped Cream
Have you ever had a ravioli made out of crescent dough? Neither had we, but after seeing this picture, can you really afford not to? Subtle, sweet nuttiness comes from all sides in the form of salted caramel whipped cream and pumpkin and pecans. Is it possible you’re still not convinced? This recipe won the contest’s $1 million grand prize in 2012.
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Strawberries and Chocolate Sugar Cookie Crepes
Sugar cookie dough is fine on its own, but transforming the dough into a crepe? GET IN MY BELLY. Bring your strawberry and chocolate hazelnut friends.