The $50,000 Bonbon

Something goofy is going on at the Hotel del Coronado, because right there at the entrance of the Crown Room--the elegant dining room where the Duke of Windsor was introduced to Wallis Simpson, where L. Frank Baum dreamed up much of the “Wizard of Oz”--stands a walking, waving, button-eyed Doughboy. Next to him is a green-skinned sprite named Sprout, apparently the preferred spokesboy of the Green Giant company, which is now part of Pillsbury, where chipper is better than jolly and gigantic.

It’s barely past 6:30 in the morning, too early for cartoon mascots. But the breakfast crowd gathered under the crown-shaped chandeliers for the 36th Pillsbury Bake-Off is wide awake. The coffee and adrenaline flow freely, and a Dixieland jazz band pumps the mood even a notch higher.

Game-show and Bake-Off host Alex Trebek shows up toward the end of breakfast, after the 100 contest finalists have received pep talks from Pillsbury’s top executives, and he seems to be the only one affected by the early hour. Later he will walk through the contest hall, face powdered and expensively sweater-dressed, like a good TV personality, but at the moment he is appearing as America rarely sees him--without makeup. No one seems to mind.

“Oh my God, it’s Alex,” says a finalist to her husband, at first embarrassed to be overheard. “Well, he’s just so smart and handsome.” In real life, Trebek seems destined to play the role he was given in Robert Altman’s “Shortcuts”--a celebrity to be ogled from afar--every time he steps into public view.

There’s just one last order of business before the contestants make the grand march into the Bake-Off hall. Everyone stands, the band begins to play and the crowd sings “God Bless America.”

“Now, doesn’t that feel better?” says Rob Hawthorne, Pillsbury’s chief operating officer. “I love tradition.”

“I think I’m going to cry,” the Trebek fan says. “I mean, this whole thing, it’s an American tradition.”

The first Pillsbury Bake-Off, in 1949, was devised, company representatives say, as a way to lure women back into the kitchen after they’d had a taste of the working life during World War II. Just as the science of home economics, a few decades earlier, made housewives feel they had a profession, not simply a list of daily chores, the Bake-Off was meant to bring glamour, patriotism--and big money--to America’s home bakers.

“A woman seldom bakes a cake, a pie, or a batch of cookies for herself,” wrote Ann Pillsbury, then director of Pillsbury’s Home Service, in the contest recipe booklet published just after the 1951 Bake-Off (called the Grand National at the time). “But through the foods she bakes, she expresses her thoughtfulness and love to her family, her friends or her church.”

Art Linkletter was the celebrity host that year, and first prize, $25,000, went to Mrs. Samuel P. Weston of La Jolla and her Starlight Double-Delight Cake. Women were listed by their husband’s names through 1976, when Mrs. Bert Groves and Mrs. Edward F. Smith co-won the grand prize.

These days, the people at Pillsbury look sheepish when they admit the contest’s early intentions. But they are quick to point out that today’s 100 finalists are a diverse lot. “They are ‘doers,’ ” says this year’s Bake-Off program, “with successful careers, who also enjoy a variety of leisure and volunteer activities.”

Before the last couple of Bake-Offs, Pillsbury went out of its way to attract cooks of all ethnic groups. Some entry forms were printed in Spanish. Others were published in places where Asians, African Americans and other ethnic cooks would find them.

Still, the majority of the finalists are female and white--this year there are eight men. But only 21 of the women consider themselves full-time homemakers. And there are a lot more savory recipes in the contest these days--mostly due to corporate expansion. With Green Giant in the Pillsbury family, things like frozen and canned vegetable products made it onto the list of required ingredients. (Each recipe must include at least one Pillsbury product, say, the Refrigerated All Ready Pizza Crust or Ready to Spread Frosting Supreme.)

It would be easy to make fun of all this corporate corn. But as the finalists suit up in their royal-blue aprons and get their final instructions (“You’ll walk in twos. Meet your partner in the hall where the Sprout and Doughboy are standing--then proceed to your ranges”), it’s hard not to get caught up in their excitement.

Inside the hotel’s Grande Hall, stern-faced Pinkerton guards ensure that only badged guests are allowed into the viewing area. A Pillsbury coordinator exchanges nervous small talk with the Sprout, only to be interrupted by one of the guards: “Could you step back? We need to get the Doughboy on camera.”

Finally, to the sounds of march music and rhythmically clapping hands, the contestants enter the hall, just behind George and Sarah Pillsbury, the grand marshals of this “parade.” (Their role is largely symbolic. Pillsbury is now owned by the British corporation Grand Metropolitan PLC, but CEO Paul Walsh knows the value of keeping the family involved in the Bake-Off.)

The first contestants in the hall are bouncy, all smiles, and they wave enthusiastically to the Pillsburys and to the cameras. As more finalists stream in, the waves grow limper; some don’t bother to wave at all, so intent and nervous are they to get to their ranges. A man stands out of camera-shot, frantically waving to the contestants, reminding them to look perky, not panicked.

Many of the finalists have been through this before; the Bake-Off attracts a lot of cooking-contest regulars, though the rules have been changed so that cooks can be finalists only three times.

A woman’s voice on the loudspeaker can barely be heard over the noise, but the contestants seem to hear her: “Please go to your kitchens. Bake-Off 36 is under way.”

Each station is equipped with an electric range from Sears, a pitcher of ice water and a mauve banquet chair, possibly for emergency rest breaks. A few ingredients are out in view--margarine for Number 11, Betty Chromzack; butter, eggs and cream cheese for Number 6, Rebecca Moe--but most are put away in the Sears-provided cabinets.

At first, there’s a lot of opening of cabinets and checking of equipment. Suddenly an aproned woman runs out of the hall. “I put too much lotion on my hands!” she shouts out to her family gathered in the observing area. “My hands are too slick to bake!” She’s off in search of a ladies room.

Thirty minutes after the contest is officially under way, the press and corporate guests are allowed to roam the ranges and pepper the finalists with questions. But the families and friends must stay behind the rope--”for security reasons,” one woman explains. “I guess they think we’re going to give them a secret ingredient or something.”

Already there are media favorites, the cooks with the stories and perky good looks that attract press attention. There are the Wittans--Joan and Susan and their mother Mildred. Each is a finalist and the camera loves them. Joan’s husband, Mark, has been a finalist in the past. And most of the Wittans are here in Coronado for a reunion--the family that bakes-off together . . . well.

Then there is Wayne Hu, at age 77 proud to be this year’s oldest contestant. He’s making Chinese Roast Pork Buns out of Pillsbury Refrigerated Buttermilk Biscuits. He came to the U.S. in the ‘40s from Shanghai. “Food is what you miss the most, more than friends,” he says. He does the Chinese cooking in the family. “My wife cooks American food.”

Tasha Marie Sullivan, at range Number 1, gets a lot of camera attention, mostly because her daughter is strapped into a mommy pouch across her chest. Sullivan’s child care fell through at the last minute, so she keeps a close watch on little Aina as she works on her potato-and-corn empanadas, dubbed Cheesy Potato ‘n’ Corn Empanadas for the contest. Catchy, cutesy names are important to Pillsbury. The guiding philosophy: Why say and when you can say ‘n’ ?

Many of the reporters call 28-year-old Alex De Santis the Tom Cruise of the Bake-Off--he prepares his Chicken, Bean and Barley Stew from start to finish behind dark wraparound sunglasses and talks of blowing any possible winnings in Vegas after the contest. As many women have noted, he’s single.

Six hours are allotted for the Bake-Off--the finalists make three versions of their entries (one for judging, one for photos and one for sampling), but the time goes quickly.

By 12:30, with just an hour and a half left before time is up, panic starts to set in. No one has ever not finished at the Bake-Off, but there are problems. A record number of Band-Aids have been handed out--so many they’ve lost count at the front desk.

Then a reporter from the Washington Post discovers that some of the Sears refrigerators aren’t cold enough to chill the non-bake pies in the contest. Kenmore-gate? Gabby technicians are hustled away from the press and an official explanation is given: So many cakes and pies needed chilling this year that the doors were constantly being opened and closed--there’s no problem with the equipment itself. The Post reporter looks doubtful.

As 2 o’clock nears, Kristen Crowley at Range 18 struggles with her Toffee Mocha Pie (a refrigerator pie) alongside Eileen Long at Range 19, who has had trouble all morning adjusting the oven temperature for her Mai Mai Sweet Potato Pie. Over at Range 97, Shirley Tompkins hustles through the final slicing and arranging of her Braided Yam Coffee Cake for the judges. At 1:55 p.m., Long, the last finalist, is off the floor. The Pillsbury people look relieved--a perfect record preserved.

The next morning, still stuffed after a private dinner show at Sea World--”I feel like one of those dolphins who automatically opens his mouth whenever someone snaps a finger,” says one finalist--everyone gathers in the hotel ballroom for the announcement of the winner. The proceedings, hosted by Trebek, are taped for broadcast later that morning on CBS.

After the usual preliminaries, during which Trebek manages to work in the word “jeopardy” three or four times, six $10,000-category winners are called to the stage, which is designed like a homey kitchen, complete with refrigerator magnets and Pillsbury products. Two of the women well up with tears when their names are called, and they hold hands tightly as they sit on stools placed around a kitchen island. It’s just like the end of a beauty contest. One of them will be the $50,000 grand-prize winner.

A silver-cloched tray is brought out to the counter. Underneath is the winning entry. Trebek takes his time building up the tension, and then the cloche is lifted, the name is announced.

It’s Mary Anne Tyndall of Whiteville, N.C. Her recipe: Fudgy Bonbons.

Sweet and gooey wins again.

* Food Styling by Donna Deane and Staci Miller