Minneapolis pastry chef takes on Paris in the Food Network’s new reality baking competition

Jeremy Intille has been vying for his own cooking show since he was about 5, when he became a kindergarten-age superfan of French chocolatier Jacques Torres and decided he’d grow up to be a pastry chef.

“I saw ‘Dessert Circus’ on PBS and I thought it was the coolest thing. He made a chicken in an egg out of chocolate, and I was like, ‘That’s rad,’ ” he said. “And then I also was like, ‘Hmm, I think I might be gay.’ So I found out two very crucial things about myself at a very young age at the same time.”

Growing up near Sacramento on a dairy farm, he was expected to pitch in. “We had farm chores, and I was like, no no. I’m a pudgy, allergenic child, I do not want to mow the lawn.” Instead, he cooked with his aunt, finding escape from family troubles in the kitchen. By middle school, he’d already discovered his dream college, the Culinary Institute of America.

Now 34, Intille is a Culinary Institute-educated pastry chef who has lived all over the world in service of his craft, including France, India, New York and, most recently, Philadelphia.

In 2022, newly sober and seeking a calmer lifestyle, he moved to Minneapolis for a job running the pastry program at the Lynhall. He followed that with a stint at Travail, and then, in late 2023, he opened as the pastry chef at 801 Fish on Nicollet Mall, where he creates impressive desserts for the downtown power lunch crowd.

Over the past decade, he interviewed for TV baking competitions some 20 times. “I always like to tell people that I’m the Susan Lucci of the Food Network,” he joked. Last fall, he finally booked one: Beginning May 6, Intille will compete on a new Food Network show, “Next Baking Master: Paris.”

The show follows 10 bakers as they learn from master pastry chefs in the City of Light — and are eliminated one by one in pursuit of $25,000 and a kitchen full of French appliances. As a twist, the bakers all live together, “Real World” style, and their relationships become part of the drama. As a fan of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” reality TV drama is Intille’s specialty.

In the preview of the first episode, a fellow baker is seen trying to salvage her melted mousse by pouring liquid nitrogen on it, a technique she says they do in Michelin-starred kitchens. Intille looks on, and is fast with a quip.

“Everyone has their very unique styles of cooking,” he says in the show. And that baker, dousing her station with cold smoke, is “a hot chaotic mess with a can of liquid nitrogen.”

“There should be like a little rattlesnake noise in the background,” he recalled with a laugh.

His own kind of sweet

Intille claims not to be sweet, both in baking style and personality. As a relatively new Midwesterner, he knows that holding back on both sugar and charm can be seen as a fault. On the baked goods, he stands firm.

“Sweet for the sake of sweet is not my style, and some people here in the Midwest will argue that my bakes are not sweet enough, and I’m just like, that’s OK. That’s not my aesthetic.” Instead, he leans on herbs, spices, almost savory Sicilian pistachios, a balsamic drizzle in his raspberry ice cream.

But try as he might to say he’s “tough and gruff,” he admits he’s actually “a teddy bear. Unless I’m hungry.” His nickname, JerBear, is in his Instagram handle (@jerbear_and_his_stickybuns). And he has the words “Positively Sweet” tattooed, one on each arm. It’s the name of an online bonbon business he founded after college, with proceeds going to HIV/AIDS education. (Intille was diagnosed with HIV in 2011. “That was my way of giving back to a community that helped support me a lot,” he said.)

Intille couldn’t say how he fared on “Next Baking Master,” of course, only that he was in Paris “for a while.”

But where other bakers use tricks like liquid nitrogen, expect Intille to show off his personal baking style, what he calls “Americana with flair.”

“I like making things that are approachable and pretty relatable,” he said. Sure, he enjoys high-end desserts at “bougie” restaurants, “but also, I’ll go and get a chocolate chip cookie, because, yes, it’s just a chocolate chip cookie, but is it ever just a chocolate chip cookie?” Each bite, he explained, contains comfort, memory “and connection.”

Being a creator of those connections has had its challenges.

“I was working 14-, 16-hour days, on average, like six days a week, had no life. Developed a pretty regular alcohol and cocaine habit. I missed weddings, funerals, my own birthday. I hadn’t been there for my niece being born. I can’t redo that,” he said.

But coming to Minneapolis in pursuit of a “chiller way of life” has, so far, paid off. He met his current partner within a month of arriving here. He recently bought his first car. Minneapolis doesn’t feel like home, he said, “but I also don’t feel like really any place is home.”

Still, he knows for certain that 5-year-old JerBear chose the right career.

“I love what I do,” Intille said. “Like, I don’t save lives, and I don’t make six figures. But I get to add a little bit of joy to people’s day.”

“No one wants a free salad if you mess up their entree; they want dessert,” he said. “Yes, sometimes I’m used to smooth things over. But also, I’m what ends a meal. I’m that high note.”

Where to see Jeremy Intille

Catch the pastry chef:

• On “Next Baking Master: Paris,” which premieres May 6 at 8 p.m. on the Food Network.

• Making desserts at 801 Fish, 800 Nicollet Mall, 612-234-6700, 801fish.com

Baking tips from Jeremy Intille

In the kitchen at 801 Fish, Jeremy Intille demonstrated the making of one of the desserts on his menu, a praline puff with pistachio mousseline and raspberry balsamic ice cream ($16). Just like on a cooking show, Intille shared tips for home bakers.

On using a mixer: “Always start slow. Things fly.”

On chilled butter: If it isn’t soft enough to mix, and you happen to have a blowtorch on hand, shoot some fire at the bottom of the mixing bowl. (Or just microwave the butter for 20 seconds.)

On filling a piping bag: Hold just a very small section of the pointy part of the bag in your hand and fill it, then unroll more of the bag to keep filling it without making a mess. Spin the full part of the bag around a few times to get all mousseline down toward the point. (But definitely don’t do that if you’ve already cut off the tip.)

On plating: “Have fun. Do whatever comes natural to you. Try not to make things that look inappropriate, which you’d think is really hard to do, and then you realize how many things are round.”

JerBear Chocolate Chip Cookies

Makes about 38 cookies.

Jeremy Intille shared his recipe for chocolate chip cookies, which won our hearts as we sought out the best in the Twin Cities in 2023. Note: Intille’s yield uses a #24 scoop (about 2 1/2 tablespoons) and are approximately 1.9 ounces each, which he calls 1 BIG bear bite or 3 socially acceptable bites.

Dry ingredients:

• 4 5/8 c. (575 g) all-purpose flour

• 3 tsp. (14 g) baking soda

• 1 3/4 tsp. (10 g) kosher salt

Wet ingredients:

• 1 3/8 c. (315 g) butter, softened

• 1 2/3 c. (320 g) dark brown sugar

• 3/4 c. (180 g) granulated sugar

• 2 tsp. (11 g) vanilla extract

• 3 extra-large eggs (165 g) eggs, at room temperature (see cookie tips)

Inclusions:

• 2 c. (235 g) quality 64% to 70% dark chocolate (see cookie tips)

• 2 c. (235 g) milk chocolate (see cookie tips)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line baking sheets with parchment.

In a bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt (no need to sift everything, it’s not cake). Set aside.

Using a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream softened butter, sugars and vanilla for about 2 minutes on speed 3. (The goal is to create a fully homogeneous mixture that is not fluffy. The color will have lightened slightly.)

Next, add room temperature eggs one at a time, making sure they are fully incorporated before adding the next. After the second egg, scrape the bowl, making sure to get around the “belly button” (the dent at the bottom of the bowl) and the paddle. Mix for 20 to 30 seconds before adding the final egg.

With the mixer off, add all the dry ingredients at once, turn to speed Stir, once the dough looks 70% mixed, clumpy with some patches of flour, add in the chocolate and finish mixing on speed Stir. (Intille uses a food processor to chop the chocolate; see cookie tips.)

Using a bowl scraper or a sturdy rubber spatula, transfer dough into a mixing bowl (I reuse the one I mixed the dry ingredients in) and with a gloved hand or a spatula give the dough 3 or 4 hand mixes to ensure there are no inconsistencies in the dough.

Using a #24 scoop, portion onto the prepared baking sheet; they will spread when baked. Bake for 4 minutes, rotate, and then bake another 4 minutes. Remove from oven and let cookies cool slightly on the pan before removing to cool completely on a wire baking rack.

Cookie tips from the chef:

• If you do not feel comfortable leaving eggs out, place them in a container of warm water for 3 to 5 minutes before using. This prevents the butter from getting cold and clumping in the dough.

• For dark chocolate, I use Manjari 64% or Guanaja 70% from Valrhona.

• I LOVE Caramelia Milk Chocolate from Valrhona, a roasted milk chocolate. It helps add a bit of depth. If you can’t find it, you can sub out half the butter for browned butter.

• I use a food processor to chop the chocolates (there are no chips in the cookie, shhh, it’s a secret). The food processor will end up making chocolate “dust” — it is GOLD. Make sure to scrape all that goodness into your dough; it not only looks nice by making the dough freckled, it adds more of a chocolate flavor throughout the cookie, not just in the gooey chunks.

• Baking times vary based on scoop and type of oven. I always suggest doing a test bake of a single cookie before committing on the whole tray.

• If you’re not baking right away, portion dough onto prepared baking sheet, with no space in between. Freeze overnight and then transfer to freezer bags or a container of your choice. When ready to bake, thaw if you have the patience before baking as directed. If not, drop oven temperature to 325 degrees and add another 2 to 4 minutes of baking time.