Janet Winquest, originally of Holdrege, was the winner of the fourth annual junior competition of the 1952 Pillsbury Bake Off. Winquest submitted a recipe for a banana split pie, and she was awarded $3,000 and General Electric kitchen equipment for her recipe.
Sixteen-year-old Janet Winquest, originally of Holdrege, won the junior competition of the 1952 Pillsbury Bake Off with her banana split pie. The year before, her sister, Betty Cooper, won a $1,000 award for best pie in the competition for her French silk chocolate pie.
Sixteen-year-old Janet Winquest, originally of Holdrege, enjoyed breakfast in bed at the Waldorf Hotel in New York City. Winquest traveled to the city for the 1952 Pillsbury Bake Off where her banana split pie won the top prize of $3,000 and new General Electric kitchen equipment in the junior division.
The banana split pie by Janet Winquest features chocolate, bananas and walnuts. Bananas are added to the top of the pie immediately before serving.
Sandra Slater uncovered a pristine copy of the 1953 Pillsbury’s Grand National Recipe and Baking Contest cookbook at the Don O. Lindgren Genealogy Library in the Nebraska Prairie Museum in Holdrege. The cookbook features a recipe for a banana split pie submitted by Holdrege native Janet Winquest.
HOLDREGE — Hilda Larson isn’t a name that immediately rings a bell for Holdrege genealogist Sandra Slater.
But Larson’s chocolaty confection she created in the 1950s is in the hearts of dessert lovers across the country.
Larson’s recipe for a chocolate “ice box” pie was the basis for the world-famous French silk pie.
Since 1980, Slater has volunteered at the genealogy library in the Nebraska Prairie Museum at Holdrege and is the president of the Phelps County Genealogy Club. When asked about Larson and her French silk chocolate pie, Slater immediately pulled out a massive brown tome, “History of Phelps County and Its People,” filled with historical information from 1873-1980.
Slater found biographical information about Hilda and her husband, John, who both were born to Swedish immigrant parents, and later married in 1920, in Bertrand. The entry spoke of John’s career in real estate, abstracting and insurance in Holdrege, the birth of their daughter, Mary, and his untimely death in a car accident on in 1951.
But nothing mentioned Hilda being the creator of a famous pie.
A week later, Slater found information not only about the French silk pie but also a banana split pie. She even found a pristine copy of Pillsbury’s 1953 cookbook with 100 prize-winning recipes, including the banana split pie, submitted by a teenage Holdrege resident, Janet Winquest.
It was Winquest’s name that pushed Slater to search further. An internet search said Betty Cooper of Silver Spring, Maryland, submitted the recipe for the French silk pie in the Grand National Recipe and Baking Contest, later known as the Pillsbury Bake-Off.
Cooper’s pie won the $1,000 Best in Class Pie award in the 1951 Pillsbury Bake-Off. A Holdrege native, Cooper, received the recipe from a friend’s mother, Hilda Larson of Holdrege.
According to the website, The Big Apple, when Cooper moved to Washington, D.C., she only had four recipes in her collection. One was for a chocolate “ice box” pie from Hilda.
Cooper heard about the Pillsbury Bake Off while listening to Arthur Godrey’s radio program, and she decided to adapt the recipe for the contest.
But Cooper’s pie wasn’t the biggest winner to come from the small Nebraska town. Her younger sister, Janet Winquest, would bring home an even larger prize in the 1952 contest.
When Slater learned Cooper’s maiden name was Winquest, she found various newspaper articles and photographs about the sisters competing in the contest and their concoctions that brought them fame and a little fortune.
A then-16-year-old Janet submitted her bananna split pie recipe to the contest in 1952 and was selected as one of 20 finalists to participate in the junior division of the fourth annual Pillsbury Bake Off. Janet went with her parents, Bernard and Esther Winquest, to compete at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.
One newspaper article featured Janet enjoying breakfast in bed at the NYC hotel, “something we don’t do often at our home in Holdrege, let alone at New York’s Waldorf hotel.”
Janet took home the top prize of $3,000 and General Electric kitchen equipment. She appeared on a nationwide radio network with celebrities including Art Linkletter and Arthur Godfrey. Godfrey presented Janet with her $3,000 check, and first lady Pat Nixon presented the awards in the senior division.
While Janet’s pie took home one of the top prizes, it was her sister’s French silk pie that would become an international sensation. In 1992, Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream trademarked the “French Silk” ice cream flavor. “French Silk” coffee was trademarked in 1995.
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August 30, 2020 at 07:30AM
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French silk pie has roots in Holdrege - Kearney Hub
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