At 89, woman refuses to back off from bake-off

ST. LOUIS, Mo. – The last time Betty Staufenbiel participated in the Pillsbury Bake-Off, she did very well. She was a runner-up – technically, she was a second senior winner – and she won $2,000.

Of course, $2,000 went a lot further in 1961.

Now, the Mehlville, Missouri, resident is 89. She does not hear as well as she used to, and her beloved husband, Dan, died recently (“I know he is happy where he is now,” she said). But she is still cooking up a storm.

In November, she will be in Nashville, competing in her second Pillsbury Bake-Off. She will be the oldest contestant there.

Staufenbiel’s entry this time around is called a Peppered Bacon-Wrapped Turkey Pub Sandwich (the name, she says, was given to her recipe by the folks at Pillsbury). It is a sandwich made with green onion-studded biscuit dough, stuffed with pepper-bacon-wrapped turkey tenderloins and melted cheese and smeared with garlic mayonnaise.

The mother of eight, grandmother of 14 and great-grandmother of four came up with the idea for the recipe at a family Thanksgiving dinner.

“One of the kids said, ‘I wish we could put it all on a piece of bread and eat it like a sandwich,’” she said.

And that concept fits in perfectly with the category in which she is entered, Amazing Doable Dinners. The idea is to make a full dinner in a single, easy dish – using Pillsbury products, of course. The only dinner item missing from the sandwich, she said, is some form of salad.

Back in 1961, she won with a recipe she called California Onion Twists and that Pillsbury decided to call Barbecue Twists.

At the time (and even today, to some extent), every party had California Onion Dip – the familiar combination of sour cream and onion soup mix. After one big party, she had some of the dip left over, and “I’m too frugal to throw anything away.” So she used the dip in place of sour cream in her mother’s recipe for sour cream dinner rolls.

The result was a success, both with her friends and the judges at Pillsbury. But doing well in contests was not unusual for Staufenbiel, who entered contests as a hobby with a group of like-minded friends.

When her children needed bicycles, she won them bicycles. Another time, she won a gasoline-powered miniature car, which she sold for a much-needed $500.

But those awards are small fry. She once won a Caribbean vacation. And she also won a contest requiring her to describe in 25 words or less what 7Up had in common with Datsun, the car company now known as Nissan.

Her winning entry was: “Datsun and 7Up, a remarkable pair. Refreshingly different with budget-wise flair. From beginning to end, each the ‘UN’ - 7Up the UNcola and the dependable DatsUN.” She was awarded a new Datsun, which she gave to her daughter who needed a car.

Since her initial success with Pillsbury in 1961, she said, “I have tried and tried and tried” to make it back into the Bake-Off as a finalist. One recipe she submitted, for a lemon poppy-seed cookie, she thought for sure would be a winner, but it was turned down by the judges. She may change a few things about it and resubmit it in a future year, she said.

Staufenbiel said she is driven by the fun of competition, not the monetary value of the awards. That $2,000 she won in 1961? A friend of hers had a son who wanted to enter the seminary, but he needed $2,000. So she sent him the check, and he entered the seminary.

“I think God provides us with the ability to do a positive thing with something that we have in our hand. It is his gift to us, and what we do with it is our gift to somebody else,” she said, explaining her penchant for giving away her winnings. And this generosity comes back to her in good ways, she said.

“Here we are again. I’m going to the Bake-Off again. Who knows what is going to happen this time? We’ll wait and see. At 89, you’d better get on the ball.”