The Internet Would Die for Claire from the Bon Appetit Test Kitchen

If you haven’t been on YouTube in the past two years, you may not be familiar with Claire from the Bon Appetit Test Kitchen, but I'm here to tell you why the Internet loves her. Bon Appetit is a culinary magazine famous for their delicious recipes featuring artistic foodie pics, and in the past year their YouTube channel has gained significant well-deserved attention for their series Gourmet Makes, featuring pastry chef Claire Saffitz attempting to recreate various junk foods from scratch. She has reverse-engineered everything from Twinkies to Cheetos to Oreos to Pop Rocks, and each video is typically 20 minutes of closely documented troubleshooting. The series consistently appears in YouTube’s list of top trending videos, with every video spawning thousands of comments supporting Claire’s efforts and praising her talent.

Claire studied American history and literature at Harvard before enrolling in culinary school. Originally, she did not see a long-term future in cooking, but she enrolled because she enjoyed “knowledge for the sake of knowledge.” Following culinary school, she earned her Master’s in history at McGill University because she fostered a deep love of school and learning. Eventually, she got her first job at BA as a recipe tester, working her way up the BA ladder until earning the title of Senior Food Editor for Bon Appetit Magazine. But she never imagined she would be the center of a growing internet fanbase as she is today.

Her first Gourmet Makes video challenged her to make Twinkies from scratch. Claire later described how much she hated the process due to the challenging nature of the task. Being a very detail-oriented, tenacious person who craves order, hosting a chaotic show like Gourmet Makes would be understandably stressful. The videos are filmed over the course of a few days, and throughout each video, you’ll commonly see Claire lamenting failed attempts, complaining to her coworkers, asking for help, researching, troubleshooting, making specific utensils to get the job done, and so on. The videos are a new brand of cooking entertainment altogether. Gone are the days of picture-perfect TV chefs completing recipes with spotless technique and every hair in place. The Internet wants to see the messy, frustrating, stressful process that is cooking, and they want a delightful bright-eyed pastry chef to warm their hearts in the process.

Claire’s creative process can be understood from the lens of the Componential Theory of creative processes which is broken up into five stages: task identification, preparation, response generation, response validation, and outcome. In task identification, the individual first identifies the task at hand. Then, in the preparatory stage, the individual relies on their domain-relevant skills to prepare to complete the task. In the response generation stage, the individual produces possible solutions, and in the response validation stage the individual tests those solutions using their domain-relevant skills. Finally, in the outcome stage, the individual asses if their solution was successful or not and returns to stage one to try again until the task is complete (Amabile et. al. “Perspective on the Social Psychology of Creativity”).

Gourmet Makes provides the perfect documentation of Claire’s creative process as she talks through her logic behind every step. This method of studying creative individuals is called introspection, and it works so naturally in this context. First Claire introduces the snack in several varieties, tastes it, picks it apart, inspects it, and takes notes on what she plans to do (task identification and preparation). Next, she invites her coworkers to contribute their general thoughts about the snacks and help her generate ideas to go off of. Often, Claire will turn to the internet to research how the snacks are made in a factory setting, and she will also read aloud the lengthy ingredients list of the snack, typically featuring several preservatives and chemical names (response generation). Then, Claire jumps right in to her first attempt at making it (response validation). Typically, this test will fail, and she might troubleshoot ways to fix it (outcome). When she gets too fed up with unsuccessful attempts, she might call it quits for the day. “I go home, I intend to go think about it, and then I forget, and then I come back the next morning without a plan.” This incubation period likely allows her to arrive at the solution faster than if she had worked continuously on the project from start to finish with no breaks.

Claire also heavily relies on collaboration with her colleagues to look at things from different perspectives in her troubleshooting. The seemingly ridiculous suggestions by Brad Leone may turn out to be the key step to completing the recipe, and the sensitive pallet of Chris Morocco may uncover the final missing ingredient in that Cheeto dust powder. Finally, Claire learns from her failed attempts, makes compromises, and adds creative flair where she can in picking flavor combinations that are slightly classier spins on the original. When she successfully completes her task, she’s beaming with pride at her accomplishment, and runs around the Bon Appetit office offering her creation to her coworkers, effectively receiving an extrinsic reward.

Claire from the Bon Appetit Test Kitchen truly exhibits Pro-C level creativity in her achievements as a professional pastry chef and food editor. At this rate, she might even reach Big-C level internet recognition for her culinary contributions on YouTube.