Loïc Fauteux-Goulet is the pride of Creston after taking home first place in the Great Canadian Baking Show.
After filming in spring, Fauteux-Goulet had to wait until the finale to finally celebrate with his loved ones.
However, that didn’t stop the valley from watching his journey every step of the way.
“It’s been such a wave of energy and support in Creston at the brewery, where we have our weekly viewings, and at school,” said Fauteux-Goulet.
“I feel great.”
Eight weeks ago, Fauteux-Goulet set up a watch party of the premier at Wild North Brewery.
Since then, those showing up to watch Fauteux-Goulet bake grew in numbers.
“On the first week, I was thinking to myself, people don’t know what they’re getting themselves into because there’s going to be eight weeks of that,” laughed Fauteux-Goulet.
“But obviously I could not talk about it because it’s a week-to-week elimination show. Then, I was just so astonished to see people coming back, bringing new people until the finale, where we probably had almost 100 in the bar.”
Trying to keep the secret over the summer was trying, says Fauteux-Goulet.
“We filmed the show in the spring, so it was a whole summer of keeping the secret. But for me, it was really fun to watch people following the show go with their predictions and kind of hoping that I made it from week to week.”
The Great Canadian Baking Show is filled with challenges, with bakers taking on three each episode.
However, Fauteux-Goulet says his biggest challenges were actually having the stamina to keep baking and keeping a positive outlook.
“At one point, when you’re practicing, you never know when you’ve done enough. You always want to do one more practice run, and that’s quite hard because you also want to rest between the challenges.”
“Sometimes you have a bad day in the tent, you have a challenge that does not go according to plan, and a couple of hours later, you just go back in there for another challenge,” added Fauteux-Goulet.
“I always told the bakers to look around themselves and just take a moment to realize where we were, because, for many of us, that was like a lifelong dream to bake there and to remember to have fun, even if it was super stressful sometimes.”
After baking at such a high level, many lessons could be brought to his home kitchen.
