Q: When I saw that you were celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Pillsbury Bake-Off with readers' favorite recipes, wonderful memories returned of my father and his baking. I still have the recipe booklet for the third contest with a copyright of 1952. I pulled it out this morning to locate the recipe for Starlight Double Delight, which won the first prize of $25,000 in the senior contest. My dad loved to bake this cake.

Nita McCord,

Macon, Ga.

A: Attaching a memory to a recipe is something Cook's Corner readers enjoy, making our stroll through Bake-Off winners even more enjoyable. Helen Weston won the 1951 Grand Prize for this cake, which uses an unusual technique, blending some of the frosting into the batter, which yields a very moist and rich cake. If you are not a mint fan, you can use vanilla or almond flavoring.

Q: I once had a recipe for rolled flank steak. I believe the filling was just sautéed onions, butter and parsley. The meat was marinated overnight in a mixture of vermouth and molasses.

Gary D. Wahl

A: I've used this marinade successfully with simple grilled flank steak. If you're going to stuff the steak, do so after the meat has marinated. Here's a tip for rolling it, which I learned from an Argentine friend: Tuck the short ends in, start rolling from the long end, and tie with twine before grilling or baking.

Q: I'm interested in do-head breakfast recipes for holiday mornings. Maybe some sort of strata. Do-ahead sides for the main meal would be great too. Does anyone have favorite recipes?

Karen, Miami Springs

A: It would be great if readers would share make-ahead recipes for holiday breakfasts. It's not hard to find a strata recipe, so I went looking for something different and found it in a wonderful new cookbook called Glorious Grits by Susan McEwen McIntosh (Oxmoor House, $22.95).

I was not born in the South, and my first introduction to grits was not auspicious. I found them mushy, gluey and tasteless. Then, at a dinner party, I tasted a shrimp and grits casserole, and learned that coarsely ground grits rather than instant make all the difference. I buy a mix of yellow and white stone-ground grits at the farmer's market and keep them in the freezer. There are many online sources.

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