The Pillsbury Bake-Off:
Ladies (and One Male Flight Attendant)… Start Your Ovens

ON THE MORNING of the Bake-Off, there are plenty of nerves and tight smiling and wishing one another luck. The whole thing kicks off with a formal parade of the bakers into the contest area, led by Tina and the life-size Doughboy. What appears to be a Jamaican ska band, only in this case fronted by white people playing percussion made from empty plastic bins and kitchen utensils, precedes them. Tina makes the unfortunate decision to try to dance to the drumbeat, which makes her look like your awkward cousin at the wedding when a Jay Z song comes on.

At 8 a.m., competitors line up at their individual ovens, numbered one to 100, and the cooking begins. It’s easy to conjure an image of the Bake-Off as billowing clouds of flour and clanging spatulas, like all of the aunts in the kitchen at once at a South Philly holiday dinner. But in truth, it’s much more ordered and precise, like a GM assembly plant that happens to smell like cupcakes.

Within a half-hour, people are turning in their dishes to the judges, which can be unnerving if you’re one of the contestants with a long-lead-time dish. Last-Chance Nadine is one of the early birds, and spends the rest of the morning idly cooking extra chicken just for the hell of it. She also lucks out with a surprise pop-by from Padma Lakshmi, the Top Chef host who’s emceeing the awards dinner tonight. (Later, Brett will harrumph that “Padma walked right past me and kept on going.”)

You get a total of three and a half hours to make your dish, and you can make it up to three times to hand in your best attempt. You have to make your recipe just as you submitted it (no cilantro!), and you’re welcome to pass out samples from the batches you don’t turn in. (The Averie Sunshines are all over this.) After you hand in your best version, you’re whisked (ha!) to a “confessional booth,” ostensibly to tape for posterity your secret fear that your beignets were perhaps just a tad too flaky.

I spend my time circling the six locals spread out across the ballroom, watching as Christine the Artiste airily sprinkles grated lime peel and coconut on her fudge, and Julie the Italian Grandmother, dressed in blinding margarine yellow and wearing a Doughboy pin for luck, meticulously spoons Smuckers jam onto her just-baked breakfast loaf. (She makes the sign of the cross before taking it to the judges.) Across the floor, her husband Joe (see?) is waving. “This is easier,” he says of being a spectator. “This is like the gladiators!”

As I witness Kristen’s growing French toast crisis, I turn to Oven #80, where Kentucky nurse Debbie Rowe is preparing her Apple Pie Breakfast Bake. I inquire if she’s the same Debbie Rowe who was married to Michael Jackson. To my deep disappointment, she is not.

As more and more dishes are submitted, I begin to wonder about the judges, tucked away in a secret room eating all of these tarts, muffins, pastries, pizzas and sandwiches. I mean, there are five coffee cakes alone in contention. I am led to believe the judges are split up into teams so nobody explodes. But still. Talk about carb-loading.

Over at Oven #88, Lynn the Cafeteria Aide is flipping her quinoa pancakes, which she will eventually garnish with berry preserves in the shape of a capital “P,” for Pillsbury. To me the touch seems a little schoolgirlish, but then, who knows what turns the judges’ heads? In her rose blouse and big pearls, Lynn projects the aura of a museum board member, or perhaps a matron of the Kennedy family. Cooking on three hours’ sleep, she’s trying to calm herself down: “I keep saying to myself, Why are you so nervous? It’s a pancake.”

As I pass a Georgia woman’s array of incredible-looking German chocolate doughnuts, I see Brett the Flight Attendant putting the finishing touches on his chocolate torte. Like Kristen, he’s made three but is submitting #2, though in his case he seems a lot more confident, if just as flustered. (So much for floating around the floor and enjoying it.) His position at Oven #1, right by the spectator area, along with his celebrity status has made his station a beehive for blogger snapshots and audience whooping. (And yes, there is whooping from the audience. Regularly.) Just before 11 a.m. he turns in his torte, and is quickly followed by a camera crew asking for an interview.

Will it win? Or will it be the Malted Milk Ball Peanut Butter Cream Squares? Perhaps the Upside Down Tomato Basil and Chicken Tartlets? The Mini Italian Shepherd’s Pies? The Cranberry Orange Dark Chocolate Flatbread? Lynn’s quinoa pancakes with the special “P” logos?

“You know, in other years I left thinking, ‘I could have done that better,’” Brett tells me afterward. “But this year, I did it exactly the way I wanted.” As I eavesdrop on the other contestants, it’s clear he has reason to be satisfied: Many pick him to win.