The night before the competition, we gathered with the 99 other finalists and all the guests and enjoyed a gourmet meal.
We learned quite a bit about the process of how recipes are selected. Well over 10,000 recipes are submitted and now they are down to 100. First, they weed out obviously not original recipes, ones that don’t meet the requirements, etc. From those thousands left, they send them to the main Pillsbury selection panel to weed them down to what think will make easy to make, yet unique and good tasting items. Then, all those remaining are cooked and taste tested by a panel at a rate of 4 dozen a day for weeks. Then from those hundreds cooked, they put the team to work looking though every known recipe book, online, etc to make sure they are original recipes. When cleared, the final 100 are chosen. Quite a process.
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