Mercotte gives us his little secrets about this new season!
The best celebrity pastry chef makes a return to Gulli to delight our taste buds! For this new season, we clearly find the shocking duo of culinary blogger Mercotte and chef Norbert Tarayre. And on this occasion, Mercotte answered our questions behind the scenes of the show and his passion for pastry.
Without Mercotte, the best pastry chef is a bit like a lean croissant, a lemon tart without lemon: tasteless. Ready since the beginning of the show, she will not miss the season 2 of Best Celebrity Pastry Chef which is currently airing on Gulli channel every Wednesday from 9:05 PM onwards. To celebrate this new season, which promises to be full of laughs (we won’t say more), Mercotte shared some little filming secrets with us, as well as his passion for pastry. Now you will know that to please him, you have to present him with Saint-Honoré… And Mercotte promises us one thing: we will not miss this new edition of the best celebrity pastry chef at Gulli!
You are a food blogger and critic, how did you get here?
A bit by accident actually (smile), they always came to pick me up. Blog, I did this by accident in 2005, a long time ago I was on a food forum and the level was average. Then someone told me “you should start a blog, it’s better”. So I started without knowing if it would continue.
Criticism is a word I don’t like very much. Let’s just say that in addition to recipes on the blog, I often talk about restaurants because I’m very greedy and I like to share. I talk about it if I want to, and especially if I pay, I talk about it. I’m not talking about the restaurant where I never paid. This is very important in my ethics. Then I think that this is a very difficult profession and one cannot afford to criticize oneself, although there are days and days when it is not. So I’m sharing all my favorites above.
Did you go into animation later?
Yes. Already in radio, I worked for over 13 years at Bleu Pays de Savoie in France, from which I recently left. They came to get me there, they interviewed me for a book, they saw that I was comfortable enough, and then I had a daily newspaper, a column for years.
TV, they came to buy me too, I didn’t ask for anything (smile). I wasn’t interested at all, I didn’t say yes straight away, I watched the first BBC show, Great British Cook. I said yes because I thought it was funny and I don’t regret saying yes!
Since you were very small, you are passionate about food?
Yes. That is, since I was a student, I did not cook at all, and above all I played the piano, so my hands were neither in the dough nor in the kitchen. On the other hand, I grew up in a family where we always ate very well and had a taste for good things, so that’s how taste was formed.
How do you get your pastry recipe ideas?
My opinion, my editorial line is to be a teacher. I like to hide the chef’s recipes for everyone. I’m forever borrowing recipe books and all that from my fellow chefs. I used to make cakes and one fine day I went to Valrhona and found that I could make sweets that had nothing to do with making cakes.
Pie is rigor, precision, knowing the right gestures, knowing the right techniques and putting everything in the right order. So, when chefs prepare a book, they say, for example, “make pastry cream”. But a pie cream, there are many secrets to make it a success! There are many tips. And that’s what leaders think everyone knows. So my job is to clarify and make it step by step and explain.
Do you have a special pastry memory to share with us?
When I was little we had cakes on Sundays very regularly. Cakes from Chambéry’s best pastry shop and another, we alternated between two pastries. I loved the whipped cream filled meringues. It’s simple, it’s good, it’s effective!
Do you have a favorite pastry?
I love Saint-Honoré, I love it (smile). In fact, I always eat it, even at Christmas. I’m making Saint-Honoré, not a yule magazine.
What recipe are you most proud of?
Like I said, I never invented a recipe. There’s a recipe I’m very protective of and make all the time, and that’s the Savoie Biscuit (or Savoie Cake, same thing). As the story goes, it’s airy, super light, super easy to make, accessible to everyone, even gluten intolerant because it’s half flour, half starch, but if you replace the flour with starch, it makes a cake for the intolerant. And very good and very simple!
If you look up “Gâteau de Savoie Mercotte” on the Internet, you will no doubt see many videos of me making Savoie cakes. It’s quick, easy, uncomplicated, anyone can make it as long as they have the right ingredients! Because if you use eggs from the farm, the cake is completely different, ten times lighter! And you should know that.
A completely failed recipe?
There are cakes at the beginning of the show that make me cry, ha ha (smile). Well, don’t cry already, I’m exaggerating a little, but at the beginning The best pastry chef, I had prepared all the cakes in my kitchen for technical recipes before the performance. And one day we had to make Gascon pastis. This is a paste that you have to spread across the length of your table, on a sheet of paper, without breaking it. He is from Aveyron, from the country of Cyril (Lignac). And it was a disaster! I couldn’t, it was terrible.
There was also a braided bun. So two three-pronged braided brioche is fine, but eight-pronged, oh la la! I looked at tutorials and everything, I couldn’t, I needed patterns, I took little pieces of paper… It was horrible, it was pliable because of the extra brioche dough. This is me whining (smile)!
It must be said that I know the technique, I know how to prepare ganache, emulsion, and so on. But it annoys me that you have to work by hand, both for decoration and all. Pie has many aspects and it doesn’t have to be complicated to be good, that’s what I mean.
Your best culinary encounter?
Strictly speaking, it was a very long time ago with Michel Gérard, because it was because of him that I really got into cooking. Thanks to the book “La cuisine gourmande”. This is something that really hits me.
Then the taste memory that I will never forget, because it was something very simple, was at Alain Chapel. Well, it’s been a long time, but I’ve had sweet pea scones. Just peas! But then it was exceptional, the taste is still in my mouth.
What advice would you give to aspiring pastry chefs who want to start out?
To be passionate. In fact, passion rules everything. It’s not an easy task, but if you like it, you’ll like it!
You animate The best celebrity pastry chef About Gully, do you have a funny shooting anecdote to tell us?
So it’s hard at Gulli because we laugh all the time! I don’t have anything in particular because they keep crashing! It is durable, it must be said. They are there, it is a performance somewhere. Most of them do not know what baking is.
The atmosphere is really nice. They buy it everywhere, they do everything, they don’t know how to crack an egg, it’s a nightmare. Finally, a funny nightmare!
What do you think of the celebrities this year? Did any of them stand out?
So this year we had Ariane Brodier who already had some experience, so she stood out a little bit. Laura (Married at 1st sight), we could also see that he already touched the robot and the whip (laughs).
Then you have to be honest, I don’t watch TV at all, so I didn’t know all of them! But yes, Gwendal Peizerat is famous for being a skater.
Didn’t they practice a bit before they arrived?
Ugh, I don’t think so! You’d have to ask them, but I don’t think so. Or if they’ve been training, there’s something to worry about (smile).
What do you like about hosting? The best celebrity pastry chef vs The best pastry chef ?
So here ( The best celebrity pastry chef), is comfortable. We’re laughing, not seriously, nothing to gain. It’s not really a competition. They’re there for two hours, three hours, they’re there for the show and they’re there for the laughs. Yes, I revive, but in a good mood and in a relaxed way.
Into The best pastry chef, there’s still a final stake in the M6, it’s a real competition, people are really trying to win there. So it’s more serious. Even if Cyril and I are very relaxed, we laugh and everything, but we are serious. We judge strictly in our soul and conscience. How do you want to judge when everyone else is bullshitting? It’s really cool, it’s funny, it’s a break here.
A reason not to miss The best celebrity pastry chef About Gulli?
You will laugh, it will relax you, if you have anxiety and you forget all that! Don’t forget to grab a small chocolate bar to hold (smile). Because even if you see a funny and slightly crazy baking, it will still make you hungry.
Thanks to Mercotte for answering our questions.
The best celebrity pastry chef, every Wednesday at Gulli from 9.05pm.
