02:36 PM CST on Wednesday, March 22, 2006

By MICHAEL GRANBERRY / The Dallas Morning News

ORLANDO, Fla. - Amid a confetti shower and a national television audience, an Austin woman captured the $1 million grand prize Wednesday in the 42nd annual Pillsbury Bake-Off with a dish called “baked chicken and spinach stuffing.”

The mother of a 4-year-old daughter, Anna Ginsberg, 35, said she hopes to use the money to open a Starbucks-style coffee bar but one in which kids can play while their parents sip lattes.

TOM FOX / DMN

Anna Ginsburg of Austin was named the winner Wednesday morning of the 2005 Pillsbury Bake-Off.

“I would like a place where I could serve coffee and bake cookies all day,” said Ms. Ginsberg, who won the “Cooking for Two” category to be eligible for the grand prize. She was also among the 100 finalists in the last Pillsbury Bake-Off, held in 2004 in Los Angeles.

In determining the winners, judges consider four criteria: Taste, appearance, creativity and consumer appeal. Contestants also have to use at least some ingredients provided by the Bake-Off’s official sponsors.

Ms. Ginsberg may have intrigued the judges by using Pillsbury Dunkables, frozen home-style waffle sticks, which she complemented with three syrup cups in creating her stuffing.

“There was a hokey factor to it,” she said with a laugh, referring to the Dunkables, “and I hope the judges could see past that.”

This year’s contest included four finalists from North Texas - one from Dallas, one from Lewisville and two from Fort Worth - but none was able to capture an individual category.

Ms. Ginsberg, who’s married to Austin computer programmer Todd Ginsberg, 33, will fly to New York and be interviewed Thursday on NBC’s Today show, which carried Wednesday’s announcement live. The couple also hopes to realize a lifelong dream of seeing London.

Beyond that, she hopes to attend a top-of-the-line pastry school.

“I would actually like to sell cookies one day and make money off it,” said Ms. Ginsberg, who’s now a stay-at-home mom after working for an advertising agency. Her cookie devotion has been chronicled in her own personal computer blog, in which she offers up a recipe a day.

“My friends make fun of me for it,” says the woman who’s also a self-proclaimed wine connoisseur, “but I love to make cookies.”

Winners of the six individual categories receive $10,000 but not if they win the grand prize. The ultimate winner receives the $1 million paid out in 20 $50,000 installments.

She called the award “fabulous,” but her husband may have been more ecstatic.

“This is great. I’m so proud of her,” said Mr. Ginsberg, who, according to his wife, doesn’t really like the prize-winning dish. “She loves doing cooking and baking, and I’m just so glad she won.”

As the Ginsbergs celebrated on stage, their child, curly-haired Emma - who wore a T-shirt proclaiming her a “Drama Queen” - clutched her mother tightly. Ms. Ginsberg said she began her cooking career when she wasn’t much older than Emma, as a 6-year-old first-grader, who, as “a latchkey kid,” had to be home alone each day until her parents returned from work. She grew up in Houston and San Antonio and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin.

Linda S. Brown, 45, an economic development consultant from Dallas, failed to win in the “Brand-New You” category. Even so, “I feel great! I had a great time,” she said. “This would have been icing on the cake, but the whole point was just being here and participating and doing it.”

E-mail mgranberry@dallasnews.com