Masterchef 2025: Doncaster-born Claire impresses top critic William Sitwell with her sweet-savoury combo
A Doncaster-born amateur cook impressed Masterchef 2025 judges Gregg Wallace and John Torode, and top food critic William Sitwell, with her sweet-savoury combo in last week’s episode.
Mum-of-two Claire, who was the first through the initial heat and into the quarter finals, was up against five others and her skills took her into the next round, just.
Copywriter Claire, aged 46, was born in Doncaster and lived in Yorkshire as a child. She went to university in Lancaster during the late 1990s and then lived in Canada for 12 years where she met her husband, Paul. She now lives in Newark-on-Trent.
In episode three of this year’s show, aired on Friday, the contestants were set a brief by renowned critic Wiliiam Sitwell.
He asked them to either take a traditionally sweet ingredient and cook it in a savoury dish or take a savoury ingredient and cook that in a sweet dish, all within an hour and a half, with three going through to knockout week.
As the contest got underway Claire said: “I think what the judges will see next might be a little confusing for them. I’m going a bit left field. My food follows my life, my travels, there’s always a story there.”
She opted to cook smores beef, a choclate steak with a marshmallow sweet potato fluff and cracker crumb served with sprouts and a whisky gravy.
“I lived in North America, Canada, for 12 years, so smores are a very common campfire snack.
“It’s a type of cracker topped with some chocolate and you roast a marshmallow on there and it melts the chocolate slightly and you eat that by a fire, and I’m putting it on a steak dish – bonkers!”
Once finished she added: “I’m so happy with the marshmallow, it’s come out glossy and sticfky and not too sweet.
“I’m excited, could this work? That would be wonderful wouldn’t it?”
Critic William said: “It’s quite ‘out there’ but that’s the whole point, the brief was designed to provoke something extraordinary.
“I appreciate the work to create something original, I like the marshmallow, homemade marshmallow absolutely fantastic, but you’ve got sweet chocolate with steak, to me, that doesn’t work.”
As it was served up, John commented that it looked like a “rushed plate” but that it was a “revelation” and “very cleverly done”.
He added: “The steak with the chocolate across the top I’m finding very sweet, it probably needs something like coffee alongside it to give it that bitterness, but there is plenty of technique.”
Gregg said: “That’s a very well cooked steak. Your biscuit is both sweet and savoury, your little bits of meringue, beautifully chewy meringue with whipped sweet potato I really like.”
In judging the dish Gregg said: “I think she nailed it.”
John went on: “Her dish suffered because she struggled with presentation and the cocoa on the outside of the steak was just a little bit too sweet for me.”
“It was always going to divide people,” said Claire, “but I didn’t want to play it safe, yeh I’m okay.
“I don’t think anyone can say I didn’t push it to the endth degree, my gut says I haven’t got a place in knockout week but if I got through it would be fantastic.”
Claire was selected as the third person to go through and said: “I’m stunned and elated, oh my gosh knockout week, no marshmallows!”
The next episode of Masterchef 2025 is being aired on BBC1 on Wednesday, August 13, at 8pm. You can watch all episodes on iPlayer.