I Love Desserts: Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off Cookies and Bars

the appetizer:

Bake a winner with Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off Cookies and Bars by the Pillsbury Editors, with recipes like Hawaiian Cookie Tarts, Praline Butter Nuggets, and White Chocolate-Key Lime Calypso Bars.

I Love Desserts

Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off
Cookies and Bars

by the Pillsbury Editors

Click to Buy Cookies and Bars

Throughout the illustrious history of the Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest, cookies and bars have increased in popularity every year. In Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off Cookies and Bars, the Pillsbury Editors gather 107 sweet recipes representing these perennial Bake-Off favorites that celebrate this beloved American treat.

Chocolate chips, peanut butter, oatmeal, marshmallow, coconut, lemon, mint, and jams are just a few of the tasty ingredients and flavors that have been used in prize-winning cookie and bar recipes prepared throughout the nearly six decades of the Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest. The Pillsbury Editors reveal how these ingredients and the decades during which they were created influenced these treats. For instance:

The '50s were an era where home bakers didn't have the kind of access to ingredients we take for granted today and cookies were made from mostly ordinary pantry ingredients. Popular 50s Bake-Off winning entries included Starlight Mint Surprise Cookies, Snappy Turtle Cookies, Ginger Cookie Capers.
Women increasingly had less time to spare in the kitchen during the 60s and eagerly turned to convenience foods and times saving appliances for help. This was the era of refrigerated dough and cake mix, which were new. They played a role in the Bake-Off desert entries during this decade. Popular '60s Bake-Off Cookie and bar recipes: Oatmeal Carmelitas, Fudge-Nut Layer Bars, Candy Bar Cookies.
By the 1970s, natural ingredients were preferred during the Bake-Off contests and bar cookies or "squares," were becoming increasingly common. Popular '70s Bake-Off cookie and bar recipes: Pecan Pie Surprise Bars, Chocolate-Cherry Bars, and Crispy Date Bars.
Decadence was the byword of the 1980s and Bake-Off dessert entries from this era mimicked this trend. Popular '80s Bake-Off cookie and bar recipes: Salted Peanut Chews, White Chocolate Chunk Cookies, and Peanut Butter'n Fudge Brownies.
The sheer variety of candy bars and toppings held sway in the 90s as recipes reflected our global community. Poplar '90s Bake-Off cookie and bar recipes: Fudgy Bonbons, Black and White Brownies, Caramel-Pecan Sticky Bun Cookies.
Despite the sophistication of technology (by the turn of the century, more than three-quarters of the BakeOff® recipes were submitted online), cookies and bars remained "a reminder of the simple life at home." Popular 2000s Bake-Off cookies and bar recipes: Chewy Chocolate-Peanut Butter Bars, Cinnamon Toffee-Pecan Cookies and Almond-Toffee-Mocha Squares.

With 39 inspirational, full-color photos, this cookbook is organized into easily referenced sections from "most requested cookies" and "family favorites," to "bake sale cookies and bars" as well as chapters on brownies and holidays. Each of the prize-winners features the name and hometown of the winner's creator and the year won. Other special features include a timeline that chronicles the Bake-Off contest through the decades, nutritional and cooking information (i.e., Exchanges and Carb Choices), a metric conversion guide, and most importantly, a nutritional breakdown for each recipe. Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off Cookies and Bars is a one-stop collection of great treats to suit every mood and occasion.

About the Author

Since 1869 Pillsbury has been one of the oldest and most powerful brands in the world. Ninety-nine percent of all consumers are aware of the Pillsbury brand and 85% of all households have a Pillsbury product on their shelves or in their refrigerator. Our cookbooks consists of a full range of titles from the Pillsbury Complete Cookbook to Bake-Off Contest classics, "Fix-It-Fast" books for individuals and families on the go, and more. For more information, visit ww.pillsbury.com. Pillsbury is a registered trademark of General Mills. Pillsbury Books is an imprint of Wiley.