While looking through all of the interesting and ecclectic National Days in the month of August, I began to notice a trend of celebrating particular baked goods, such as National Rasberry Cream Pie Day ( Aug. 1), National Chocolate Chip Cookie Day (Aug. 4), National Rice Pudding Day (Aug. 8), and National Lemon Meringue Pie Day (Aug. 15) to name a few. This trend stuck with me and at first I couldn’t figure out why. Then all of the sudden the fuse fizzled out at the end of the line and the memory of a Maryknoll Sister entering a baking contest flashed into my mind! At that point, I began my search to find this Sister and share her story with you. Her name was Sr. Mary Carol (Maria José) Cannon and she was the third place winner in the Pillsbury fifth grand national recipe and cake baking contest in October of 1953. Her prize winning Coconut Island Cookie recipe began with an old cake recipe from her mother that served as the base of the mixture. Then she made a few alterations, which included “fiddling around with fresh coconut,” and “Voilá!” You’ve got a prize winning cookie! Below you will find the recipe for her famous Coconut Island Cookies and an account from a Sister who accompanied Sr. Mary Carol Cannon throughout the contest. Enjoy stepping into the contest, and, if you make them, a delicious bite of a Coconut Island Cookie!
“Sister Maria José registered formally as a contestant Sunday night and got her dainty insignia ~ a four-inch button inscribed with PILLSBURY’S BEST and her own name. Then, off to the Bronx house for the night.
Next morning it was raining. We took a taxi all the way to the Waldorf[…] We were just in time for the initial breakfast at 8:15. The ante-room of the Grand Ballroom was filled with tables of about eight or ten people. As soon as Sister came, she was vested in her colorful (to say the least) Pillsbury apron.
[…]The regulations were announced: ‘You will soon go into your kitchen, ladies; – a nice little room about three stories high and tastefully decorated in gold leaf. Just like you have at home. There you will find 100 GE ranges and 100 mixers, together with all the ingredients you will want for your recipe. Also you will find a lot of […] people coming around with lights and cameras and questions. Now, newspaper men are to be treated like children, kindly but firmly. Don’t let them get in the way of your baking.’
At that point all the husbands of senior contestants, the mothers of junior ones and everybody else – but me! – had to go upstairs to the balcony and watch from up there. I was given press privileges and could go anywhere I wished. At first I thought she had gone to her Eternal Reward, for all during November we read about souls liberated from Purgatory and appearing to people in a blaze of light. But it was only the photographers making hay while the klieg’s shone. From then on she measured, mixed, cracked coconuts, dropped cookies and sprinkled topping before a battery of lights enough to wreck anyone’s disposition. I stayed alongside merely to answer routine questions and to explain about what kind of an order we are.[…]
After she finished her baking at about 1:30, we sat down to the THIS WEEK luncheon. In the middle of it Columbia Broadcasting Studio requested a television interview. So, Sister once more did her stuff in an interview. Afterward, we went around talking to the other women. One from Wyoming has been using a 55 year-old range which burns coal and wood. Electricity penetrated to her district just three years ago. Imagine what a flurry her brand new GE range will make there!
[…]At about 4:30 we left for the Bronx again[…] Next day the Grand Award luncheon began around one o’clock. The great ballroom which had been a beehive of ranges, mixers, food and photographers only yesterday was now a suave dining salon — with hundreds of tables set up[.]
Then the Grand March began with each contestant carrying a plate of her food and being announced[.] Sister carried the sickest looking plate of cookies I ever saw. My heart sank; this is the reason for it. You see, each contestant was to have baked two batches of her recipe the day before, one for the judges to eat and another which was solely to be photographed. Well, Sister did it all right, but when the men in charge went to get Sister’s second batch, they found that they were so tempting that everybody passing by had snitched one. There were NONE left! And the judges had eaten all the others! What to do? Well, they gave her recipe to the chefs at the Waldorf and said, ‘Bake a batch, quick!’
[…]The TV program was to begin at 2:30. At this the major awards were to be made. [T]he TV show commenced with Godfrey, Linkletter, and Jerry Moore doing the clowning. Linkletter came through the audience, stopping here and there. He said a few sentences to Sister and passed on. Then, he announced the prizes: ‘The Third Prize of $2,500 goes to “Coconut Isles” submitted by Sister Maria José Cannon from Honolulu.’ The spotlight turned on our little Cookie Queen as she went around the tables to get her check from Helen Hayes. Linkletter went on, ‘Sister Cannon is a Maryknoll Sister. This order has missions all over the world.’… and a little spell about the congregation which fell like summer dew on my ears. ‘What are you going to do with the money?’ he asked Sister. And — just perfectly at home up there in the blaze of glory, she said, ‘I’ll let our Mother General worry about that.'”
