Cake Decorator Nycole Mercier uses a stencil to cut a cake into the shape of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula at Elmer’s County Market. The self-taught chef will give a presentation on step-by-step cutout cookie decorating during next Tuesday’s cooking show at the Island Resort and Casino.(Escanaba Daily Press photo)

ESCANABA — The live holiday-themed cooking show that will be held at the Island Resort and Casino on Dec. 10 will feature cookie decorating demonstrations by Nycole Mercier, a self-taught chef who currently works at Elmer’s County Market in Escanaba.

Mercier — nee Alexandroni — said that she learned the craft of elaborate home baking from various sources on the internet. It didn’t take long before she founded her own business, called Baking Bad, as a way to provide continual work for herself while moving around a lot as a military spouse.

“I Googled, and Pinterest, and all that crazy stuff. YouTube pretty much created me,” Mercier said. “I used to watch YouTube videos, and I was like, ‘I think I can do that.’ I wasn’t sure, but my motto was, ‘I’m just gonna wing it, like my life and my eyeliner.’ … I was winging it, and somehow, someway, it did me really good.”

Baking Bad attracted the attention of Food Network, and Mercier was invited to take part in the network’s “Christmas Cookie Challenge” in 2018.

Mercier, who grew up in Escanaba, relocated along with her family to Texas, California, Colorado, Georgia — never in one place for long. Baking out of the home and renting commercial kitchens “was the only thing that I could do as a steady income and travel with it,” she said.

About a year and a half ago, Nycole and her husband separated, and she moved to Gladstone with her two daughters.

“I’ve traveled the world, and this was the only place that ever felt like home,” Mercier said. “It feels really, really, really good to be home.”

In June, she was hired at Elmer’s County Market as a cake decorator. She said that’s also part of the bonus of being home.

“Especially growing up in this area, Elmer’s was the heart of the town. This is where you came with mom, grocery shopping, and did all of this — and I got my birthday cakes from here when I was little,” Mercier said. “It’s weird how it does, ironically, become full circle, you know. It’s nice.”

Some of the skills she’d acquired over the years and applied in her own business are now also available to customers of the market bakery.

“Our cake department offerings have always been traditional cakes (birthday, graduation, special events, etc.) as well as wedding cakes (consultation, creation, and delivery),” said Elmer’s Store Director Kurt Strasler. “Since Nycole has joined our staff, her designs/abilities are different than the other cake decorators, and with that, our offerings are more vast than they were. “

For example, there were cakes that looked like dressed turkeys coming out of Elmer’s around Thanksgiving. Mercier explained that there’s almost nothing she did for Baking Bad that can’t also be done at Elmer’s, but that the prices are more affordable at the county market than they would be if a customer ordered from a specialty independent baker.

“It’s kind of nice that you kind of get that high-end luxury … right here out of a grocery store, which has never been heard of before. So it’s kind of new and innovating,” she said.

On Tuesday, the 10th, Mercier will display to the audience of the “Taste of the Island Cooking Show: Holiday Edition” how doable it is to create elaborately decorated desserts.

“If I can decorate a cookie, you can decorate a cookie,” she said.

Between other elements of the main event, which will primarily feature cooking demonstrations of holiday side dishes with Chef Kristina Pomeroy and Emcee Stephen Gakstatter, Mercier will produce a few example creations using cutout sugar cookies.

“And there’s a big possibility I’m gonna pull someone up on stage and have someone decorate along with me,” Mercier said.

Tickets for the cooking show — which will be from 6 to 9 p.m. with doors opening at 5 p.m. on Dec. 10 — include a buffet, goodie bags, live entertainment, access to vendors and Sayklly’s chocolate fountain in the convention center at the Island Resort and Casino. They may be purchased at the Daily Press (600 Ludington St.), Elmer’s County Market (412 N. Lincoln Rd.) and the Island (W 399 U.S. 2).