Pâtisserie Étienne Culot
www.facebook.com/etienneculotpatisserie/
Country: France
Sector: Pastry
My name is Étienne Culot, I am 38 years old and I have been working as a pastry chef for over 22 years. We are the fourth generation to carry on this profession. I began my career working in Michelin-starred restaurants and today I run my own pastry shop.
My approach to pastry-making is very close to a chef’s mindset when organizing a modern kitchen: we experiment, we taste and reflect, always starting from the product itself. Only at a later stage do we focus on presentation and the visual aesthetics of the dessert.
Together with my team, we work hard to offer a wide and constantly evolving selection of desserts, which we we refresh frequently. From the very beginning, our goal has been to reinterpret traditional recipes with a contemporary vision.
In the near future, we will open a new lab and carry out a renovation of the shop. We aim to expand our range by developing new products such as cakes, madeleines and pralines and by introducing a line of chocolate snacks as well.
The numbers behind Pâtisserie Étienne Culot
Nine years ago, together with my wife Margot, we bought our pastry shop in Grenoble, in the French Alps, taking over from a well-known local pastry chef who was about to retire.
The shop is called Pâtisserie Etienne Culot and our work is based on the use of seasonal ingredients and fresh raw materials. Everything is handmade.
We do not produce bread: we focus exclusively on pastry and viennoiserie.
In production, we work as a five-person team and we are currently setting up a fully equipped pastry laboratory to improve and optimise our production processes.
Right now, we have around 70 m² of space, which means that every machine must guarantee maximum efficiency.
The challenge for Pâtisserie Étienne Culot
I was looking for a pasteurizer, but I never liked working traditional ones: I always found them complex to use, difficult to clean and poorly suited to small-scale production.
A friend recommended an outstanding Firex machine to me and that’s how I discovered Cucimix.
I chose the “smallest” version, the 30-litre Cucimix and it is simply perfect.
With Cucimix, we handle both larger productions, such as over 20 kg of fresh citrus jam, and smaller batches, for example pâte à bombe for mousses.
We use it for everything: cremeux, custard cream, mousseline cream, pâte à bombe, fresh fruit purées for confit, citrus confit for panettone or pastry, caramel for pralines, caramelised nuts… I use it every time I need to cook something. It has become my right-hand man (no, I’m joking!😉).
What the customer says
Honestly, I don’t even know where to start—there are so many advantages to the Cucimix cooker:
- The temperature control is always extremely precise.
- It is a user-friendly and highly flexible machine, capable of adapting to a wide variety of recipes.
- Cleaning is also very easy and the mixer can be removed effortlessly.
- Today, everything revolves around time: sometimes saving time is more important than saving money. My Cucimix saves me time every single day, allowing me to increase production and work more efficiently.
- Cucimix is also highly intuitive: it allows you to create recipes with different phases, different temperatures and different quantities. It is even possible to tilt the tank and continue working.
- My lab is very small, and this machine is perfectly sized for kitchens with limited space. Its footprint is ideal, and its capacity perfectly meets the needs of my shop.
I also see that new accessories are now available: the basket looks fantastic for preparing candied fruit for panettone, and the latest accessory with Robot Coupe connection is also extremely interesting.
Étienne Culot: “With Cucimix I really do everything: from large batches of jam to small bases for mousses and creams, and by now in the lab it’s my right-hand partner whenever I need to cook something.”
