Pâtisserie Etienne CULOT
https://www.facebook.com/etienneculotpatisserie/
Country: France
Sector: Pastry
My name is Etienne Culot, I’m 38 years old, and I’ve been a pastry chef for about 22 years. We are the fourth generation to carry on this profession. I started my career in Michelin-starred restaurants, and today I run my own pastry shop.
My approach to pastry is very close to a chef’s mindset when organizing a modern kitchen: we test, we taste, and we always think about the product first. Only afterwards do we focus on presentation and how to make it look beautiful. Together with my team, we work hard to offer a very wide selection of desserts, which we change very often. From the very beginning, we created traditional recipes revisited with a modern twist. Soon we will open a workshop/lab and renovate the shop. We want to develop more products (such as cakes, madeleines, and pralines) and also offer some chocolate snacks.
The numbers behind Pâtisserie Etienne CULOT
Nine years ago, my wife Margot and I bought our pastry shop in Grenoble, in the French Alps, from a pastry chef who was about to retire and was very well known in the city. The shop is called Pâtisserie Etienne Culot, and our work is based on seasonal ingredients and fresh products.
Everything is handmade. We don’t make bread: only pastry and viennoiserie. There are five of us in production. We are currently setting up a real pastry laboratory to improve production. Right now I have around 70 m², so every machine has to be 100% efficient.
The challenge for Pâtisserie Etienne CULOT
I was looking for a pasteurizer. I never liked working with traditional pasteurizers: I always found them difficult to use, complicated to clean, and not suitable for small batches. A friend told me Firex makes an exceptional machine. That’s how I discovered Cucimix. I bought the “smallest” one: the 30-liter Cucimix — and it’s simply perfect.
With Cucimix we do large productions (over 20 kg of fresh citrus jam) as well as small batches such as pâte à bombe for mousses. We make practically everything in it: crémeux, crème pâtissière, mousseline, pâte à bombe, fresh fruit purées for confit, citrus confit for panettone or pastry, caramel for pralines, caramelized nuts… I use it every time I need to cook something. It’s almost my right-hand man (no, I’m kidding!).
What the customer says
Honestly, I don’t even know where to start—there are so many advantages to this cooker:
- The temperature is always accurate.
- It’s extremely easy to use and to adapt to different recipes.
- Very easy to clean. It’s also very simple to remove the mixer.
- Today everything is about time. Sometimes saving time is more important than saving money. My Cucimix saves me time—so I can produce more and be more efficient.
- Cucimix is very intuitive: you can create recipes with different phases, different temperatures, and different quantities. You can even tilt the bowl and keep working.
- My workshop is very small, and this machine is perfectly sized for a small kitchen. The footprint is ideal, and the capacity is perfect for my shop.
Now I also see that new accessories are available: the basket looks fantastic for making candied fruit for panettone, and the latest accessory with the Robot Coupe connection also seems very interesting.
Etienne 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.”
