Mandy, the Pillsbury Food Editor, has been feeding her community years before her professional culinary career began. She grew up working in her family’s small grocery store, stocking the shelves with items like Betty Crocker cake mixes and Pillsbury biscuits. On Sunday mornings, her mom often treated the family to Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls, Orange Rolls, or recipes from the Pillsbury Kitchens using a can of biscuits. Mandy often asked for Maple Logs and is thrilled to find the exact recipe for Maple Cream Coffee Treat on Pillsbury.com.
For her after-school snacks, she had her pick of items from their store, but she often craved items not stocked. Her mom invited her to use their toaster oven and groceries from their store to make whatever she wanted. “I wanted to eat mini pizzas, but we didn’t carry them in our store, so I had to make them. I experimented with different items for the crust, like hamburger buns but found Pillsbury biscuit dough worked the best out of all the items we sold.”
Those early experiments in the kitchen laid the foundation for Mandy’s 11+ years in the food industry as a line cook in a Michelin-starred kitchen, a pastry cook in a bakery, a cooking teacher, and ultimately as a recipe tester, developer, editor, and producer for cookbooks, appliance brands like June Oven and Weber Grills, as well as print and digital publishers like GFF Magazine and Buzzfeed/Tasty. Over the years, she has developed a variety of savory and sweet recipes from everyday meals to special occasion dinners, but her favorite recipes are one-pan meals because they are so practical and approachable but take a bit of experimentation.
Even before graduating culinary school, Mandy appreciated the versatility of Pillsbury products and how they help unlock creativity. “To be working at Pillsbury now and helping people feed their loved ones and unlock their own creativity is a major pinch-me moment!”