A crowd of students in the McCormick Auditorium chanted, “Claire! Claire! Claire!” as author and YouTuber Claire Saffitz walked onstage at A&O Productions’ winter speaker event on Thursday.
Saffitz rose to fame from her series on Bon Appétit’s YouTube channel, titled “Gourmet Makes.” In the series, Saffitz attempted to reverse engineer popular snacks like Twinkies and Pop-Tarts, making them from scratch without a recipe.
Saffitz’s popularity online became marked by the viral hashtag #IWDFCFTBATK — meaning “I would die for Claire from the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen.”
Saffitz parted ways with Bon Appétit in 2020. She then created her independent version of “Gourmet Makes” called “Claire Recreates.” Saffitz is also the author of two cookbooks, “Dessert Person” and “What’s for Dessert.”
Thursday’s event took inspiration from Saffitz’s career as a baker and recipe tester. The event began with a cake decorating contest during which students divided into four teams of two and had ten minutes to decorate a space-themed cake.
After the contest, Saffitz arrived onstage to demonstrate a recipe for chilled lemon mousse.
Acknowledging her audience’s limited access to a kitchen, Saffitz ensured the recipe required no specialized equipment or ingredients, adding that “limitations in cooking can be very helpful.”
“I felt like it would be really fun and creative to do a cooking demo instead of a regular event,” A&O Productions’ head of speakers and Medill senior Elizabeth Casolo.
Onstage, Saffitz discussed everything from her inspirations — Martha Stewart and vintage cookbooks — to how “Claire Recreates” compares to “Gourmet Makes.”
“The concept is the same basically, but it’s night and day because I get to choose,” Saffitz said of the series. “With ‘Claire Recreates,’ there hasn’t been anything that’s felt like a big failure; it’s all been really fun.”
After the demonstration, two members of Cookology, a culinary arts club at Northwestern, led a Q&A session with Saffitz.
The Harvard University graduate spoke about discovering her career path while in school. Saffitz attended École Grégoire-Ferrandi — a culinary arts school in France — after obtaining her bachelor’s degree. She also discussed her uncertainty about her career path in graduate school. Some attendees said this message resonated with them.
“She shared how she knew what her interests were, and how she was figuring out how to combine that into something she would want to do,” said School of Education and Social Policy freshman Mariam Muhammad, who attended the event. “I thought that it was special for her to share that, knowing she was speaking in front of a college student audience.”
Muhammad appreciated Saffitz encouraging the audience to “explore their interests.”
To conclude the evening, Saffitz played a game of “Hot or Not,” rating everything from brown butter to Jeremy Allen White in “The Bear.” At the end of the game, Saffitz judged the cakes from the competition and declared a group called the Whisk Takers’ the winner for their “The Starry Night” inspired work, saying it reflected the “intense creativity” she sees in cake decorating today.
Muhammad, a fan of Saffitz’s and member of the winning team, took the compliments to heart..
“It was so exciting. I felt so proud to hear the Claire Saffitz compliment what our decoration looked like and compliment how creative it was because she’s the baking queen,” Muhammad said.
Muhammad and her teammate each won a poster signed by Saffitz.
Casolo said Saffitz’s visit was “a wonderful opportunity” to bring students together.
“When I applied to be the head of the speakers committee, I actually wrote on my application, ‘I would love if Claire Saffitz could come,’” said Casololo. “We were very lucky to land her.”
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