MARION — For about eight months, Debi Lindsey-Morrison had to keep her experience competing on a Food Network baking competition a total secret.

Yet there was, in fact, one clue as to what Lindsey-Morrison, a Marion resident, had accomplished on the “Christmas Cookie Challenge.”

The show was filmed in Burbank, California in April. Lindsey-Morrison, who operates local baking business Rolling in the Dough, won the cookie-creating competition against three other contestants with a maple pecan double chocolate chip cookie cake.

The cookie, 12 inches in diameter, was the largest she had ever created to that point. It was something she had essentially never baked before, until she was on a Food Network studio set competing for $10,000. She was afraid it wouldn’t bake properly, Lindsey-Morrison said.

It wouldn’t be revealed until Thanksgiving night Nov. 28, when the episode aired, that she won the competition. But when Lindsey-Morrison returned to Marion after filming eight months prior, Lindsey-Morrison began offering cookie cakes at Rolling in the Dough.

The television judges had loved Lindsey-Morrison’s first-time, foot-wide, nearly inch-thick Christmas-themed cookie cake with eight slices of different designs.

“The whole time they were reviewing it, I was in disbelief,” Lindsey-Morrison said. “All those positive things that kept coming out of their mouths. So I was just trying to soak it all in.”

Before Lindsey-Morrison, 32, crafted the biggest cookie she had ever made and earned Food Network’s “Christmas Cookie Challenge” victory, she actually thought she was going home.

During the show’s first challenge, a few things went wrong, she said.

Afterwards, while her makeup was touched up between filming segments, a tear ran down Lindsey-Morrison’s face as she was convinced she lost. A producer saw it.

“You never know what's going to happen,” the Food Network producer said according to Lindsey-Morrison. “Don't discount yourself yet.”

When Lindsey-Morrison wasn’t eliminated after the first challenge, “it just totally lit a fire,” she said.

“I went from feeling that I was floundering a little bit to totally in the zone, as long as I could have gotten my cookie baked right, which I was so stressed about,” Lindsey-Morrison said. “I felt like I could do the rest, no problem.”

On the night of Thanksgiving, Lindsey-Morrison watched the episode with her wife Lisa and daughter Freya, as others texted her while the show aired.

“It was a really nice moment, and I felt the love from everywhere,” Lindsey-Morrison said.

At Rolling in the Dough, Lindsey-Morrison now offers 6-, 9- and 12-inch cookies cakes. People love them, and she feels more confident creating them, she said.

She said she was thinking about making some for the holiday season.

But it all started with that first maple pecan double chocolate chip cookie cake in April that made her a Food Network champion.