The 46th official Pillsbury Bake-Off is underway and even though this year's competition has been completely redesigned, contestants are eagerly preparing their submissions for a chance at winning the $1million grand prize.

The idea behind the competition's restructuring is 'the simpler, the better'. Those entering the bake-off this year will see several new restrictions.

To encourage simpler, original recipes, cooks are limited to no more than seven ingredients (not counting salt, pepper, and water) and take 30 minutes or less to prepare, not including baking or cooling time.

Pillsbury reduced the number of categories this year to just three: Amazing Doable Dinners, Simple Sweets and Starters, and Quick Rise and Shine Breakfast.

Also new this year, entries for each category are accepted at different times. The first deadline, for the dinners category, has already passed (entries needed to be submitted before February 7 to be considered for judging).

Contestants are still able to try for the remaining two. Sweets and starters will accept entries from April 4 to May 9, and the breakfast category runs from July 4 to August 8.

But do not fret about missing the deadline for the dinner category. Another change to this year's bake-off is the addition of online voting to determine the 100 finalists. The public will be able pick from a narrowed down selection of recipes on the Pillsbury Bake-off website.

Voting runs in two-week intervals and will open this month (from March 14 to 28) for the first category. Voting for the other two will be June 13-27 and September 12-26.

The Pillsbury Bake-Off has a few other important rules to note.

Each entry has to include two different ingredients from two provided lists (List A, Pillsbury products; List B, those of associated sponsors) and there is a designated amount of product that must be used in a recipe entry.

The final competition will be held at its new location Las Vegas from November 10-12.

For full details and entry forms please visit Pillsbury's official contest site.