Do you guys remember a couple of months ago, I was practically begging you to look at my Duncan Hines Frosting Creations recipes? I ended up creating eight of them in total, though I believe only three of them ended up here.

The challenge was to create a recipe using the new Frosting Creations product and post it on their website. They mentioned that the judging would be based on overall creativity of the recipes, as well as the broad appeal of the recipe (after all, a recipe can be insanely creative, but have zero appeal, or have a ton of appeal, but not really be creative, necessarily). For the Duncan Hines challenge, you had to have a recipe that had both of the skills needed.

Out of all of the recipes submitted, Duncan Hines took note of my recipes, my innovative spirit, and my rockin’ blog, and selected me… little ol’ me… and 11 other great bakers to come tour the Duncan Hines test kitchen and spend some time with their fantastic Duncan Hines chefs.

I’m not even kidding. 12 of us. In the entire nation.

I couldn’t be more excited if I tried… When I found out, I felt incredible, fantastic, truly… amazed. I had entered the contest as a way to improve my baking skill and challenge my creativity. And the challenge did that! I’m a more confident baker as a result, a lot more fearless when it comes to creating and adapting recipes. Had I gotten nothing else out of the challenge, I would have been happy. But I am so lucky, and so blessed, and so incredibly excited. As soon as I found out, though, I also kind of felt incompetent. After all, there are 11 other bakers. Chances are, there will be several of them who are more experienced, more talented, more creative, and just generally more awesome than I am. I started to get worried. I started to lose my confidence. And then, I decided that this is the perfect opportunity to make some changes and to make myself feel more confident.

I went shopping. I bought two great tops that I look amazing in and feel incredible in. I bought new sleepwear because, duh, comfort at the end of a long day is essential. I bought new undergarments because I am one of those girls who firmly believes that, even if no one sees what you’re wearing underneath, the right underwear can make you feel confident and powerful. I pulled the whitestrips out of my stash in my cabinet. I chopped my hair off to a cute, professional style instead of the longer, stringier, tousled hair that I previously had, and I had my mom dye it. I trimmed, dyed, changed, worked, pinched, and pulled myself into a reflection of the newer, more confident baker I felt like I was inside. I wanted to reflect that girl on the outside, too.

Finally, yesterday, I got the really exciting part… my flight information! June 1, I’ll be flying out just before 9am, and I’ll finally arrive in New Jersey around 3pm. I will get to spend that evening and the following day fulfilling my dreams of spending time with the wonderful people at Duncan Hines, and, the following day, I’ll board a plane just after 6:30, arriving at my home airport after 11:30, only to drive an hour home and see my family again, and tell them all about the trip.

I should be receiving a clearer itenerary in the next day or two, and I’ll be able to find out exactly what kinds of great adventures I’ll be having and the things I’ll be learning. I’m so excited for my trip. I owe it all to my mom, who let me trash her kitchen over 8 times to bake and re-bake, and create, and figure out my recipes. I have to thank my brother, who helped me come up with ideas for the recipes I submitted– he is such a creative guy! And, I owe a lot to the HyVee near me, the only store who carried all of the other flavors I needed for my recipes. Now, the Frosting Creations are all over our area, but at the time, that was the only one carrying the frosting… after I had used up the frosting that Duncan Hines had sent me as part of their Very Important Baker program, I had to purchase more frosting, and ended up making about 5 trips back to that HyVee for more frosting.

I am so blessed, and so excited, and I can’t wait to tell you guys all about it.

In the meantime, check out my recipes on the Duncan Hines website. Each of the images below link to the recipe I created. All you have to do is click on the photo, and it’ll take you straight to the recipe. If you like what you see, I’d love it if you could click “like” on the recipe!