Stocking the pantry of the “Best Pastry Chef” is quite an art. From the most classic ingredients to the most original ones: you have to be prepared for any eventuality. Thus, in the first episode of the new season currently being broadcast on M6, Hafidou wanted to revisit the waffle using fonio flour, a gluten-free cereal grown in particular in Benin. In the past, some candidates have incorporated star anise, a spice used for its aniseed flavor, and Amlou, a Berber almond paste with orange blossom and argan oil, into their recipes. , charcoal, pollen, white miso paste….
How does production anticipate the needs of participants? Three or four months before the start of filming, the kitchen manager begins to consider and list all the possible and imaginable ingredients to support the candidates in their creations. If, initially, the pantry brings together all the usable foodstuffs in a fairly logical manner, the contents are enriched according to the casting. “Hafidou, who comes from Benin, told us: “I would like to put Beninese flavors in my cakes, my pastries”. He doesn’t know the tests in advance but we tell him: “Come with all your products and we’ll store them”, says Jérémie Atlan, entertainment director at BBC Studios France. It’s true that we can’t predict everything, there are flavors that we don’t know. »
Discover the “pastry” speaking candidates
The same brief is given to each candidate. “In fact, when the casting director asks them questions, we discover who they are “pastry” speaking,” he summarizes. That’s not all. The applicant’s home region is also considered in stocking the pantry. “We try to predict the flavors of each of them in advance,” insists Jérémie Atlan. If a candidate comes from Normandy, we will ask him if he often uses calvados in his cakes and if he answers in the affirmative, we stock it. »
In fact, the question of the pantry arises from the preparation. “When writing the tests, we are in contact with the kitchen management to ensure that these challenges can see the light of day,” explains Jérémie Atlan. This year, with the French’s favorite desserts, we knew we were going to make lemon tart, so we need several varieties of this citrus fruit. With the kitchen management, we see which ones they can have. You need as many as possible: caviar lemon, yuzu lemon… We encourage them to take original varieties because we, when we tell the pastry chefs to revisit this dessert, they may have already done it and perhaps have already have ideas in mind. We must be able to anticipate all of this. »
“We will always find a solution for them”
Possible pastry variations are also discussed with Cyril Lignac and Benoît Couvrand (pastry chef within the Cyril Lignac group). “If the theme is crème brûlée, we discuss it with them and they tell us everything that could be done. Same for tiramisu. They detail the different versions: lemon, raspberry, aromatic herbs… So we store all these ingredients, which is already enormous. »
What if, despite all this work upstream, an ingredient is missing on the big day? “Honestly, it didn’t happen this season, but if it did, we would start a real discussion with the candidate. If, for example, he wants cherries and we don’t have any because it’s not in season, we tell him and inevitably, after reflection, he will move towards another idea. The goal is that he doesn’t say to himself: “my recipe is rubbish because I didn’t have any cherries”, comments Jérémie Atlan. If there is a problem, we will always find a solution for them, but we will not be able to go and buy something because we are in live conditions.”