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Winner of the Magnolia Silos Baking Competition
Annie Paul loved baking from an early age. Her parents allowed her to use their oven when she was 7 years old. She is not sure that she will let her children use the oven that young. When she was 14, she worked at a bakery and started learning about baking from a series of mentors. She worked at Marge's Donut Den taking orders at the counter. One day Marge asked her to decorate a cake and she started working in the bakery. Annie worked at Beacon Hill Independent Living Center. She kept bringing in pastries until the executive chef asked her to join the kitchen as a pastry chef. Beacon Hill is still one of the customers of her wholesale bakery.
AP Baked Goods operates out of Annie's commercial kitchen built next to the family house. Her husband convinced her to build it so she could be near her daughters and bake. She had started baking wedding cakes on the weekends, but the business grew.
The Contest
The Magnolia Network is owned by Chip and Joanna Gaines and Warner Brothers. They are headquartered in Waco Texas, where the Silos Baking Co is one of the businesses on the property. About 1.3 million people visit Magnolia every year. When Annie's oldest daughter was teething and she was pregnant with her youngest daughter, she spent a lot of time in a chair soothing her teething daughter. She had plenty of time to scroll through information on the internet. She saw information about the baking contest and decided to enter.
Annie submitted her summer berry bar recipe that she had developed when her family picked too many strawberries. She is not a competitive person and really did not expect to win. She was really excited to have the opportunity to visit Magnolia and meet Joanna Gaines and the celebrity chef judges. Her recipe was quickly accepted for the contest and she and her husband flew to Waco. The contest was held outdoors and she remembers looking up while baking and seeing the audience members all around her watching.
She decided that she would use the winnings from the contest to give back. So far, she baked enough cookies to give to everyone attending the Zeeland Christmas Parade and has hired some young women who want to learn how to bake. And yes, she did bring a summer berry bar for everybody at the meeting.