Celebrity Interview: Chef Marcela Valladolid on The American Baking Competition

June 7, 2013 By speppel Leave a Comment

The heat is rising on  The American Baking Competition, the latest reality TV cooking show to hit the airwaves on CBS. Ten contestants have already begun sharing their culinary skills and talents with the world and two hopefuls have been eliminated.

Recently, I was given the opportunity to ask celebrity chef and baking  judge Marcela Valladolid about her experience on the show where she interacts with fellow judge and British Bake-Off Star Paul Hollywood and the American celebrity host Jeff Foxworthy.

Q: Of the contestants that you have gotten to judge so far, are there some of them in which you see a little bit of yourself from when you were first getting started? (Note: Marcela is also known for hosting her own show on Food Network called Mexican Made Easy.)

Marcela: Absolutely! I see myself a little bit in all of them.

We have for example, Carlo, who wears the Italian flag on his chest and I’m kind of that way with my Mexican cooking. Sometimes people want to streamline me and make me more approachable and more acceptable and my response is always,  “Why would you want me to change what’s in my core?” and I stand by my heritage.

I always say that I carry both the American and the Mexican flag with equal amounts of pride but my traditions and my cuisine is deeply rooted in Mexican cooking and I see a lot of that in Carlo which I appreciate so much. To have such an enormous sense of pride for your country of origin and to be able to fuse that with your adopted country, with for him and myself to be the US.

In terms of Effie, she cannot talk about her family without getting emotional and so much of her cooking is tied in with those family stories. Sometimes I feel like I bore people because the first thing that always comes out of mouth is my mom taught me how to make this or this is my son’s favorite. For me, everything is so tied into my experience of being a daughter of a strong Mexican cooking woman and also being the mother of a half-Mexican half-American son and I think Effie is very much like that. Every time we walk up to her and I ask her what the inspiration is for her dishes, which is important to me because I want to know where it comes from, she would always go back to her family. And, the reason her cooking was so clean and the reason it was organic and the reason she chose not to put this food in the recipe always had something to do with her family.

Whitney reminded me of how innocent I was at the beginning of my career. I would jump into stuff I wasn’t nearly ready for; but, I was so passionate about what I do for a living that I didn’t care — I just jumped in with my heart on my sleeve. I didn’t care what people said or how it was judged. I just jumped in there and I was so afraid I was about to pee my pants every competition every television segment, and I think that’s Whitney. She stands behind what she believes in but at the same time she’s so young and she has such a bright beautiful future ahead of her.

I do see myself in a little bit of every single one of those contestants. I started my career as a competition so I definitely see myself.
The 10 contestant competition is in its third week which means two have already gone home! Tune into see how today’s chefs are adding their own new twist to classic recipes.

Q: During the competition, are there moments where you just want to jump in and do it for them? Is that hard as a judge?

 Marcela: It is. There were a couple of times where we were held back because this is a very serious competition. There is $250,000 on the line and a book deal.

When we would do the walk-around before they present the finished dish and they’re telling each of us their inspiration and the process and the whole thing, there were a couple of times I had to stop myself or someone actually had to stop me because I was giving out too much information.

I would see them piping various different shapes and sizes on the baking sheet which is a huge no-no. You want to make everything kind of the same size so that they bake evenly. Really simple tips like that.

The rule was if you bake it we taste it. So I kind-of wanted to go in and stop them and be like listen before you pop it in the oven, smooth out the top or tap the pan so you get all those air bubbles out. I absolutely wanted to jump in but it’s a very serious competition with a lot on the line so we just had to hold back.

(Thank you Marcela for your time! Great job on the show!)

Note: the contestants are competing for $250,000 and a book deal with Simon & Schuster.  

Tune in on CBS: Wednesday 8 ET/7c.

Follow the conversation on Twitter: @BakeOnCBS