Entries Now Being Accepted for Pillsbury Bake-Off(R) Contest

The 43rd Pillsbury Bake-Off® Contest is now open for entries and inviting amateur cooks to send in their original recipe ideas for a chance at a million-dollar grand prize. General Mills along with contest sponsors General Electric, The J.M. Smucker Company, Eggland’s Best, Land O’Lakes, Inc., Fisher Nuts, and Domino Foods, Inc., are bringing new recipe categories, new prizes, new eligible ingredients and a new online partner to America’s biggest cooking competition. For the first time, Yahoo! Food will host the official 43rd Pillsbury Bake-Off® Contest web site at bakeoff.yahoo.com. Creative cooks must enter online between now and April 22, 2007, for their chance at the million-dollar grand prize. The exciting contest finals will take place April 13-15, 2008, at the Fairmont Hotel & Resort, Dallas, Texas. "Our presence on Yahoo! Food will help spread contest news, both encouraging people to enter, or try a great recipe from past contests,” said Maggie Harris, director of promotion marketing at General Mills. "Whether it’s the thrill of competing or simply trying an award-winning recipe, there’s something for everyone with the Pillsbury Bake-Off® Contest, and that’s what’s made the contest engaging for more than five decades.” Among the contest changes are two new recipe categories that celebrate America’s love for pizza and Mexican-flavored foods. The 100 Bake-Off® Contest finalists each receive a GE microwave, and also can win new prizes, including an award highlighting peanut butter as an ingredient. New familiar eligible ingredients, including LAND O LAKES® Stick Butter, Jif® Peanut Butter, Smucker’s® Jams, Jellies, Preserves, Fruit Spreads and Ice Cream Toppings, Crisco® Cooking Oil, Eggland’s Best Eggs, Domino® and C&H® Sugar and Fisher® Nuts, can be paired with returning eligible products, such as Pillsbury® Refrigerated Pizza Crusts, Crescent Dinner Rolls, Cinnamon Rolls, Create n’ Bake™ Cookie Dough and Old El Paso® Tortillas and Taco Shells, for home cooks’ original recipe entries, offering many options for contest creativity. Cash, Prizes and Trips The 43rd Bake-Off ® Contest will award more than $1.2 million in cash, prizes and trips. There are five contest categories, and the judges will award the top recipe in each category a prize. One of the five category winners will win the $1 million grand prize and a GE Profile™ Double Wall Oven with PreciseAir™ Convection, plus their choice of $7,000 in additional GE Profile™ kitchen appliances. Combined retail value of Grand Prize is approximately $1,010,000. The four remaining Recipe Category Winners each receive $5,000 and a GE Profile™ Double Oven Freestanding Range with PreciseAir™ Convection and two self-clean ovens. Combined retail value of each Category Prize is approximately $7,000. Three additional awards will be presented to winners chosen from any of the recipe categories: The recipe with the most consumer votes receives the America’s Favorite Recipe Award of $5,000 sponsored by Yahoo! Food. Consumers will be invited to go online to bakeoff.yahoo.com in early 2008 to view the 100 final recipes and to vote for their favorite recipe. All recipes are eligible for this Award, regardless of other category prizes or other awards at the contest. The GE Imagination At Work Award recognizes the most innovative recipe, and its winner receives a GE Profile™ Double Oven Freestanding Range with PreciseAir™ Convection and two self-clean ovens, plus the choice of $3,000 in additional GE Profile™ kitchen appliances. Retail value of the GE Imagination At Work Award is approximately $5,000. The GE Imagination At Work Award will be awarded to a finalist who has not won the Grand Prize or a Recipe Category Prize. The Jif® Peanut Butter Award recognizes the finalist who has the best recipe using at least ¼ cup of Jif® Peanut Butter. The winner will receive $5,000. Just being selected for the contest finals makes each of the competitors a winner, since all 100 finalists win a trip to the Pillsbury Bake-Off ® Contest including airfare, a two-night stay at the Fairmont Hotel & Resort, Dallas, Texas, daily event-sponsored meals, a GE microwave with enhanced cooking performance (estimated retail valued of $460), and $100. Approximate retail value of each finalist package is $2,210. Recipe Categories Five recipe categories define the kinds of recipes consumers should submit for the Bake-Off ® competition. The Breakfast & Brunches category includes casual brunch or weekend family breakfast ideas; for example, sweet rolls, breakfast breads or egg dishes. The Pizza Creations category encourages home cooks to create snack or family pizzas, calzones, panini and more. Contestants must use Pillsbury® Refrigerated Pizza Crust in recipes for this category. In the Entertaining Appetizers category, entrants can submit appetizer and snack ideas to serve at casual gatherings with family and friends or for holiday entertaining. These ideas may include bite-size sandwiches, foldovers or pinwheels. The Old El Paso® Mexican Favorites category calls for recipes that creatively use Mexican-inspired flavors; for example, tacos, burritos, enchiladas, fajitas or quesadillas. Home cooks must use an Old El Paso® participating product in recipes for this category. Quick and easy treats for anytime celebrations can be entered into the Sweet Treats category. Recipes for this category could include cookies, pies, tarts, brownies or bars. Eligible Products Contest officials have created two lists of eligible products. Contestants must use two or more different eligible products in their recipes, with at least one ingredient from the primary list of products and a second from either the primary or secondary list. The primary list features returning eligible products to the contest, including Pillsbury® Refrigerated Crescent Dinner Rolls, Pizza Crust, Create ‘n Bake™ Cookie Dough, Grands!® and Golden Layers® Biscuits, Cinnamon Rolls, Breadsticks, Crusty French Loaf, and Pie Crusts; Frozen Oven Baked biscuits; Brownie Mixes; Pillsbury BEST® Flour; and Old El Paso® Tortillas and Taco Shells. The secondary list features Old El Paso® Chopped Green Chiles, Refried Beans, Salsa, Red Enchilada Sauce and Taco Seasoning and Green Giant® Frozen Boxed Vegetables. Jif® Peanut Butter, Smucker’s® Jams, Jellies, Preserves, Fruit Spreads and Ice Cream Toppings, Crisco® Cooking Oil, Eggland’s Best Eggs, LAND O LAKES® Stick Butter, Domino® and C&H Sugar and Fisher® Nuts also are new eligible ingredients on the secondary list. Many of these eligible products are available in a variety of flavors, allowing people to choose their favorite ingredients from throughout the grocery store to use in their recipes. The official contest rules are available at bakeoff.yahoo.com and list the specific eligible products and the amount of each that must be used in a recipe entry. The 100 mini-kitchens will also be stocked with Crisco® no-stick cooking spray. How to Enter You must enter online at bakeoff.yahoo.com. Only entries submitted via the web site electronic form will be accepted. The contest is open to amateur cooks, ages 18 or older as of January 15, 2007. Contest entries must be newly created and the original recipe of the contestant. The recipes will be judged for 1) taste, 2) appearance, 3) creativity, and 4) consumer appeal. All entries must meet the requirements of the recipe category and appropriately use two of the eligible products in at least the quantity specified. More Contest News Contest sponsors will be partnering to bring the news of the upcoming 43rd Bake-Off ® Contest to consumers via a variety of new promotional and advertising initiatives. Supermarket display materials and advertising in magazines and newspaper inserts will remind consumers to enter their recipes. Contest news will appear on select packages, as well as on web sites and in e-newsletters. America’s most prestigious cooking contest, the Pillsbury Bake-Off ® Contest originated in 1949. The $1 million grand prize has been awarded since 1996. The last Pillsbury Bake-Off ® Contest was held March 2006 in Orlando, Fla. About the Sponsors General Mills is a leading global manufacturer and marketer of consumer foods products. Its more than 100 U.S. consumer brands includes Pillsbury, Green Giant, Old El Paso, Cheerios and other Big G cereal brands, Yoplait, Nature Valley, Totino’s, and Progresso, among others. For more than 130 years, families have trusted Pillsbury to make mealtimes special times. Favorite Pillsbury products include refrigerated cookies, crescent dinner rolls, breads, biscuits, pie crusts and sweet rolls as well as frozen biscuits, breads, rolls, pie crusts and breakfast items. For product information and great-tasting recipes, visit www.pillsbury.com. Log on to www.generalmills.com for company information. For nearly a century, Old El Paso® has been helping and inspiring consumers to bring fun and flavorful Mexican food to their dinner tables. Trusted to create delicious Mexican meals with mainstream appeal, Old El Paso spices up meal planning. Popular Old El Paso products include dinner kits, taco shells, seasonings and a complete line of Mexican meal components. Old El Paso brings families and friends together for a fun and lively meal. For more information and delicious recipes, please visit www.oldelpaso.com. GE Consumer & Industrial spans the globe as an industry leader in major appliance, lighting and integrated industrial equipment, systems and services. Providing solutions for commercial, industrial and residential use in more than 100 countries, GE Consumer & Industrial uses innovative technologies and "ecomagination," a GE initiative to aggressively bring to market new technologies that help customers and consumers meet pressing environmental challenges, to deliver comfort, convenience and electrical protection and control. General Electric (NYSE:GE) brings imagination to work, selling products under the Monogram®, Profile™ GE®, Hotpoint®, SmartWater™ Reveal®, Edison™ and Energy Smart™ consumer brands, and Entellisys™ industrial brand. For more information, consumers may visit www.ge.com. The J. M. Smucker Company (NYSE:SJM) is a leading marketer and manufacturer of fruit spreads, peanut butter, shortening and oils, ice cream toppings and health and natural foods beverages in North America. The Company’s wide variety of icon brands and products have been part of home-made family meals for generations, and include such trusted favorites as Smucker’s® jams, jellies, preserves, fruit spreads and ice cream toppings; Jif® peanut butter; Crisco® oils, shortening and sprays; and Pillsbury® baking mixes, ready-to-spread frosting and flour. For more information and delicious recipes, please visit www.smuckers.com, www.jif.com, www.crisco.com and www.pillsburybaking.com. Eggland's Best is the No. 1 branded egg in the U.S. They are the recipients of many awards, including The Best Tasting Egg Award from the American Culinary Chefs Best for five consecutive years, the Men’s Health Top Pick as the Best Eggs in their 2006 Nutrition Awards, The Crystal Egg Award from the International Egg Commission, and the National Health & Wellness Club Stamp of Approval. This year, Eggland’s Best became the official egg of the 43rd Pillsbury Bake-Off® Contest. The distinctive "EB” stamp on the shell indicates that the eggs meet high standards of taste, nutrition and quality. Eggland’s Best hens are fed a strictly controlled, high-quality, all-natural, all-vegetarian diet without added hormones, antibiotics or steroids of any kind. Sold in supermarkets throughout the country, EB eggs are also available in cage-free and organic varieties, and are certified as Kosher. For more information, visit www.eggland.com. Land O’Lakes, Inc., a Minnesota-based food and agriculture company, is a leading supplier of quality dairy products. In 1921, Land O’Lakes began making butter from sweet—not sour—cream. Ever since that breakthrough, the company has been a leading producer of butter and other pure, wholesome dairy products that deliver simple goodness to consumers. Today, the tradition of innovation continues with a complete line up of butter and spreads products. Visit www.landolakes.com anytime for great recipes and meal ideas. For more than 100 years, Domino® Sugar and C&H® Sugar have joined millions of Americans in their kitchens to help bake something special and create memories that last a lifetime. Share the joy of baking with family and friends by using 100% pure cane Domino® Sugar or C&H® Sugar. For classic recipes, baking tips, product information and so much more, visit Domino® Sugar's Web site: www.dominosugar.com or C&H® Sugar's Web site: www.chsugar.com. Since 1920, Fisher® Nuts has prided itself in providing only the freshest and highest quality nuts. Fisher Chef’s Naturals® are a favorite with at-home chefs looking for an easy and nutritious way to add flavor and pizzazz to any dish. Today, Fisher® Nuts continues its tradition of excellence as a John B. Sanfilippo & Son, Inc.(JBSS) brand. Fisher® Nuts and Fisher® Chef’s Naturals® nuts are enjoyed as healthy snacks and as delicious baking and cooking ingredients, making everyday meals extraordinary. JBSS, Inc. has been a leading processor, marketer and distributor of shelled and in-shell nuts and extruded snacks since 1922. The company’s fresh and delicious products can be found in stores and supermarkets under the Fisher®, Fisher® Chef’s Naturals® and Sunshine Country® brand names and under a variety of private labels. For more information on Fisher Nuts, please visit www.fishernuts.com. Yahoo! Food (http://food.yahoo.com) is a comprehensive new lifestyle Web site that enables consumers to discover the best food information and content online. The site, launched in November 2006, combines content from celebrity chefs, a searchable recipe database and personalization features, as well as a built-in user community around the topic of food. Yahoo! Food is the company’s latest example of developing a unique user experience through the combination of social media tools and high-quality licensed, original and video content.