Claire MasterChef 2025: Who is the Yorkshire contestant competing as a finalist on BBC One cooking show?
MasterChef 2025 finalist Claire is from Doncaster - here is everything you need to know about her.
The finals on MasterChef will air on BBC One after seven weeks of intense competition and with just four contestants left standing, they will journey to the city of Athens, Greece.
The four amateur chefs will be immersed in a rich food culture, thousands of years in the making and will face three challenges, designed to broaden their culinary skills.
MasterChef final will air on Wednesday, September 24, 2025, on BBC One at 8pm.
Who is Claire - the Yorkshire contestant on MasterChef 2025 final?
Claire, 46, is a copywriter from Doncaster who was raised in Yorkshire as a child.
She lives with her husband Paul and their two children Evelynne and Henry in Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire.
Claire studied at Lancaster University during the late 1990s and then lived in Canada for 12 years where she met her husband.
When describing her style of cooking, Claire said: “I love to cook a huge variety of different cuisines – a jack of all foods and a master of none.
“The biggest influences are home-grown vegetables as I've grown veggies most of my life. I’m also influenced by dishes from my travels around the world and the strong culinary traditions of my husband’s Danish family.
“I’ve inherited a love for Scandinavian flavours and techniques, many of which have found their way into our own family’s food traditions.
“I'm a Yorkshire girl at heart so I believe strongly in the benefits of gravy and custard, and a weekly infusion of at least one portion keeps me grounded!”
She was inspired to cook when she was eight and became interested in how dinner was made.
Claire asked if she could help to measure and started making entire dishes when she was 12 years old.
Through university and her years of travelling, she immersed herself further in cooking.
“I've loved food from a really young age,” Claire said.
“My dad grew lots of fruits and vegetables and I remember harvesting them from the age of six. I still remember what my first steamed beetroot tasted like.
“Most of my favourite meals have garlic – it appears in so many cuisines from French, Italian, Greek, Chinese, Thai and now British cooking.”
When asked why she entered MasterChef this year, Claire said: “My husband really pushed me to apply for MasterChef so that I could celebrate how much cooking has meant to me in the last nine years during a tricky time in my life.
“I would love to write a book that compiles delicious family recipes with life and cooking tips that have saved me during a hard time.
“I think teaching people to cook on any budget is a very powerful tool and a dream would be to push for a national cooking programme in conjunction with a budget supermarket. So much of our health and wealth starts at the dinner table.”