TE Restaurant Treat Inspires a $1M Recipe

Great artists often have a muse. Culinary artists are no different. Just ask 2012 Pillsbury Bake-Off Winner Christina Verrelli of Devon.

In an "On the Food Scene with Steve" video posted on YouTube, Verrelli says she was inspired in part by one of her favorite desserts on the menu at a popular Berwyn restaurant.

Verrelli, who beat out tens of thousands of other entrants to win the 45th Annual Pillsbury Bake-Off, says she loves a doughnut treat at   "They serve these little sugar-coated doughnuts for dessert. You get them in a bag, right out of the fryer and you shake them in the sugar, and then they have three dipping sauces.  So I was thinking of kind of creating that in a different way."

Verrelli tells interviewer Stephen Fries that it took a little trial and error to come up with what ultimately proved to be the million-dollar-winning recipe. "I tried just a plain cream cheese filling and it was bland, and somehow the pumpkin came to me. I tried berry dips, and I tried chocolate dips, and it was just too heavy, and somehow whipped cream," Verrelli explains in the video. "Salted carmel's popular right now and I thought that went well with the pumpkin and the pecan and it just kind of worked together."

Verrelli says it was a thrill to meet and get the news of her win from long-time inspiration Martha Stewart.  Stewart presented her with a check for one million dollars live on the Martha Stewart Show, which now airs on the Hallmark Channel. "I have followed her for so long," Verrelli says of Stewart. "I used to go to the gym in my twenties, "and they would have all the TVs and I would set it to The Martha Stewart Show, much to the shargrin I'm sure, of some of the people around me. I would exercise away and I guess you just absorb stuff."

Click on the videos to watch Christina Verrelli's full interview and to watch a "behind the scenes" video of the action during the 2012 bake-off held last month in Orlando, Florida.

Click here for Christina's winning recipe.

Where do you find your culinary inspirations?

Tell us in the comments section at the bottom of this article.