Bill Clinton's Cookie Recipe Copied from Betty Crocker

Cindy McCain isn't the only spouse of a presidential candidate to pass off a recipe as her own. Bill Clinton, who entered Family Circle magazine's 5th Presidential Bake-Off against McCain and Michelle Obama before his spouse suspended her campaign, appears to have stolen his own recipe for oatmeal cookies.

Family Circle includes this brief description for Bill Clinton's Oatmeal Cookies:

Longtime Clinton family cook Oscar Flores -- he worked for them in Washington and after but is now serving in Iraq -- is famous for these brown-sugar treats, which tempt the former president to break his diet.

However, a tastemaker at the Huffington Post discovered that the ingredients and instructions for Bill's "brown-sugar treats" are pilfered from the most obvious of culinary sources: the Betty Crocker cookbook. Below are the two recipes, see for yourself.

(click to enlarge)

Bill Clinton's Oatmeal Cookies
Betty Crocker's Toasted Oatmeal Cookies

Related: Re-Heat Offender: Cindy Bakes Another Whopper

Comments

[wjb0965]

"...but I want to say one thing to the American people. I want you to listen to me. I'm going to say this again. I did not steal the cookie recipe from that women....Ms. Crocker. I never told anyone to lie..not a single time...never. These allegations are false, and I need to go back to work for the American people."

[joeinvt]

Wasn't it a little nookie that Bill got from Betty Crocker, not a little cookie?

[tellner]

The Republicans need to draft Larry Craig. Nobody can deny that the hotdog-stuffed butter lubricated Super Tuber is his own invention.

http://www.virtualcities.com/ons/id/gov/idgvlc10.htm

[BrianMac]

Every year I read about this cookie bake-off s**t, it makes me want to TOSS my cookies.

WHO

THE

F**K

CARES

!

?

[mcthfg]

Cindy McCain stole drugs from the charity she ran.

I think there's a pattern here...

[RRonin]

She didn't steal them, she just borrowed them, she was going to put them back.....

[Kaos911]

You guys are cruel. She's saving them for when he dumps her for an 18 year old.

[JackND]

What was expected...these people don't have careers in the culinary industry. And most recipes are basic...about 80 to 90% the same across the board.

[UpstateNY]

Okay - I get it Cindy McCain and Bill Clinton don't bake - who cares? Not me! Baking is a real job and they hire other people to do it - good for them!

How much time did it take for someone to scour all the online recipes to 'uncover' this story? I think your time and energy could really have been spent on something more important - that would be almost anything else!

As a memorial to Tim Russert, all news organizations should take a pledge to report important positions and facts about the candidates. I'm pretty sure that Laura Bush used her own recipe for cookies - and look what a horrible mess the last 8 years have been.

[oya9]

(Cont from first post)
On the other hand, Laura Bush's oatmeal chip recipe reinforced her image as a everyday gal and the addition of coconut suggested that she had some independence.

Food writer MFK Fisher argued that a good recipe should be accessible to every level of cook. It's no surprise that the winners have been chocolate chip or oatmeal. Both of these types of cookies have easy to find ingredients, don't require any particularly hard work and are difficult to get wrong. They are most closely associated with celebration, family and a mother's love.

Before the emerging recipe-gates, I'd have said that Michelle Obama's shortbread recipe, although not as as disastrous as Theresa Kerry's, was a political loser because it reinforces the idea of Obama as an out-ot-touch elite. Its rather more common in England and it can be tricky to get just right. To top it off, zesting lemons and limes can be time-consuming and expensive.

Plagiarized it may be, the Clinton recipe has a potent narrative. Clinton claims that supplied by Oscar Flores, a Latino former cook who is now serving in Iraq. How many political notes can one recipe hit?! We can only hope that serving in Iraq will exempt poor Mr. Flores from calls from reporters about plagiarism.

For the record, I have no interest in an average American for President; like John Stewart, I want our President to be better than the rest of us!

[oya9]

I want to push back for a minute against all the moaning that this contest is entirely ridiculous because in many ways it reflects a basic phenomena of contemporary American politics: the demand that our President (and by extension, the spouse) be "one of us." Wasn't the conventional wisdom of the first campaign that Bush won on his popular/populist appeal despite being the scion of a politically and economically elite family? Thus our insistence that candidates do things they are not good at or have no interest in (see Obama and bowling), just to prove that they are average Americans.

The magazine asks the spouses to supply one of their "favorite" recipes on the assumption that the winning spouse is the one whose tastes most closely matches America's--as least as reflected in the Family Circle readership. Don't forget that the ethos of FC cooking is more like Rachel Ray than Martha Stewart.The choice of recipe (whether original or not) comes to reflect the popular image of the candidate. Sadly, this means that the savvy campaign might have to lie and pick, not the favorite family recipe, but the recipe that most closely matches mainstream American tastes.

Thus, Theresa Heinz Kerry's unfortunate choice of "Pumpkin Spice Cookies" (which called for ingredients hard to find in your average supermarket) reinforced the perception of her and John Kerry as elitist and out of touch with average Americans.

[rangem]

scumbag get s busted again dont the clinton s ever get tired of pandering and the scandel s maybe they should just quit lying and try telling the truth

[emsique]

There are only so many combinations of butter, flower, baking soda, nuts, spices, etc. existing in the world. If it's any good, it's probably been published. Isn't there some kind of war, recession, and other evils more pressing?

I personally think that Bill Clinton is more of the open the roll of tollhouse cookie dough and two-fingering into his mouth. Yummy!

[EvSmith]

F*$#ing Scumbag.

[SwingingFromCenter]

So Cindy's recipe not being original gets front-site headlines, while Bill's gets buried.

Yup, real objective there.

[BadCompany]

Bill and his wife aren't running for office.
No objectivity lost there at all.

[Tkaskmaster]

I don't know if you guys reseached this at Huff Post, but I believe Conan O'Brian recently sued Family Circle because they attributed a recipee to him for Irish Potato Stew, which he did not actually approve of or submit to the magazine. Conan claimed that if he won they would pay him in Potatoes. Anyway, I think it is highly doubtful that any of the celebrities or public figures whose names are next to the recipees actually are responsible for them.

[Philippa]

I remember the episode where Conan denied sending a recipe to a magazine. This may be the same case.

[gobarackgo]

I like a good gotcha moment as much as the next guy, but how many people actually invent their own recipes? I gotta believe most of my Grandma's secret recipes were ripped off from Betty Crocker, too.