Burlington County woman is $1 million Bake-Off winner

Sue Compton, a mild-mannered mortgage-loan processor from Delanco known as "Mamma Compton" for her cookies, was named the $1 million grand prize winner of the 44th Pillsbury Bake-Off on Wednesday.

Before being named the top winner, Compton, 56, had captured the contest's "Sweet Treats" category for her Mini Ice Cream Cookie Cups recipe, which she prepared at Monday's Bake-Off contest in Orlando.

Compton and three other category finalists were flown to Chicago on Monday to appear on Oprah Winfrey's show.

The show will air at 4 p.m. Wednesday on 6ABC.

In addition to the money, Compton also won a GE range and $7,000 worth of kitchen appliances.

"This recipe didn't include many ingredients but they were combined in the most imaginative way possible," said contest judge Jonell Nash, a food consultant and former food editor of Essence Magazine.

"Easy to serve and still original enough to impress, this is a dessert recipe you can prepare the night before," said judge Jeff Houck, food editor for the Tampa Tribune. "Nobody will know how simple it was and you'll still be the hit of the party." Houck also described the dish as the "perfect portion size" while judge Carolyn Jung of Foodgal.com raved about this "suped-up ice cream cone cookie."

Her inventive recipe creates an attractive dessert: a "cup" made of ready-to-bake sugar cookies (baked in a cupcake pan) with a rim of melted chocolate and walnuts; the cup is layered with a spoon of raspberry jam, then a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and finally topped with a fresh raspberry.

The world's richest culinary contest drew over 10,000 recipes, and was then narrowed down to 100 finalists, who filled a ballroom at the Walford-Astoria Resort to prepare their recipes for judges. They each had four hours to prepare three versions.

Working on Range #84, Compton averted a disaster early on when she shut off her GE electric convection oven instead of setting the temperature. "Where's my little gas stove?" she said in mock alarm. She said she had trouble falling asleep Sunday night and woke five or six times.

Compton said she saw an advertisement in the coupon section of a newspaper last year. It asked: "Is your recipe worth $1 million?"

"I considered this a challenge, and entered to find out," she said, adding that she submitted two recipes: Mini Ice Cream Cookie Cups and a chewy-crisp oatmeal raisin chocolate chip cookie. She said she bought a cartful of eligible products and fiddled with them until she came up with the winning entry.

While practicing, she said, she tried to "vary the victims" by volunteering to supply snacks for her retired mother's social groups: card club, domino club, red hats. "This relieves her of the responsibility and gives me plenty of practice," she said last month.