The wild ride that is Baked by Buki began as a fluke. Newark resident Buki Elegbede’s older sister, Anu, asked him to bake cookies for her holiday party, circa five or six years back. She was well aware that he knew his way around a bake tray.
“I did, and they were delicious,” Buki recounts. “Then . . . she called again.” In short order, he was her go-to boutique baker for all things sweet and festive, from spooky Halloween cookies to Christmas cupcakes.
For most people, that would have been the end of it, a sweet side hustle to accompany the CBS and Fios1 alum’s day job in media. Spend a little time in Buki’s world, however, and you realize that this charming 31-yearold is not most people. A word-of-mouth labor of love evolved into a series on Create TV when he landed the top spot in the 2017 Create TV Cooking Challenge.
The spark was a bit of synchronicity, plus a whoopie pie recipe that turned the heads of judges including Lidia Bastianich, Sara Moulton and Julia Collin Davison and Bridget Lancaster from America’s Test Kitchen. We caught up with Buki to discuss life in the kitchen on-air and off.
How did baking draw you in?
I have always loved to cook and bake. A lot of people say that if you have an analytical and mathematical mind, you are better for baking because it is very straightforward and exact. The funny of all funnies is that I bake a lot, but I don’t have a sweet tooth. I enjoy the process, and more so, I enjoy all the gadgets.
That’s my real love. My KitchenAid mixer. The big, honking expensive blender. The ice cream maker. I don’t think there is a single machine I don’t have at this point, or if I don’t have it, it’s because there is no more room in the kitchen. Literally, the pots go from the ceiling to the floor. My kitchen is small but mighty.
How did baking for family and friends lead you to America’s top TV chefs?
I am a millennial in the sense that I do not watch commercials. Every single streaming service that I have is commercial-free. But randomly, I was watching Martha Bakes on Create TV. I was on the computer trying to multitask, and it was on the DVR, so it started running through the commercials. All of the sudden, I hear: “Do you want to be on television?” And I said, “Yeah, I kind of do.” Then the voiceover said, “Do you want your own cooking show?” “Uh, yeah. I do.” Then I heard, “Join the Create TV cooking challenge. Log on for more information blah blah blah.” I said, “I have to do this.”
And you killed it, winning $4,000 and equipment to film the Baked by Buki series.
I was like, “Oh! The America’s Test Kitchen ladies like me! That’s amazing.”
“Millennials are like New Yorkers: You either cook or you don’t. There is no in-between, but I feel like there needs to be, and that’s why I did these cooking videos. If you can read, you can follow a recipe. You don’t have to try to be Ina Garten or anything, but if there’s an Epicurious roast chicken with lemon, you can do that.”
What inspired that winning whoopie pie?
The funny thing is that whoopie pies were actually number two. I said, “Someone’s going to do a chocolate chip cookie.” I need to do something crazy. So, I was going to make a strawberry dream jelly-roll cake. The night before, I realized there’s just no way I could take anyone through that in a minute, even with the best editor in Hollywood. I scrapped it at midnight, looked at my pantry and said, “We have cocoa powder. We have flour. We have butter. We have sugar. We have cream cheese. Let’s do a whoopie pie.”
What was it like behind the scenes?
Create TV was invaluable because the Create series—although it looked wonderful—it’s the iceberg analogy. The tips, and then everything else is going on behind the scenes. I just didn’t realize how many steps it took. You make one dish beforehand, and then you make one on camera. For some reason, I didn’t realize that I needed three of the same pot to make it cohesive. But it was invaluable. There’s no way I could have done the food segments for my new series, The Get Life, without doing Create first.
Did cooking shows shape your interest in food?
When I was 15—3,000 years ago—I was diagnosed with scoliosis. At that point, it was a little late, so we had to opt for surgery to correct the curvature. I had watched cooking shows before, and I always enjoyed them. I loved Daisy Cooks! I loved Jacques Torres. I loved Jacques Pepin, and of course, the one who started it all, Mrs. Julia Child. After the surgery, I was in the hospital for about a week. I could not stop watching cooking shows. I just loved how they did it, how they moved with the knives and used their tools. It was kind of like ballet, only in food form.
Then, when I finally discovered cooking equipment, I was hooked. I was like, ‘Wait a minute, I can have a KitchenAid mixer, too? It’s not just for people on TV?!’ I used to read Chef ’s Catalog like most people read Vogue.
Do you see a link between celebrity cooking shows and yours?
This is where I show that even though I am a millennial, I am really a 45-year-old man. I got hooked because of the mastery. I really can’t even describe how I used to feel watching Emeril and Michael Chiarello. It’s funny, because I actually think Ina Garten, who is far from a millennial, does it nicely: She’ll take you through, but then she’ll give you a little ‘this is how I did it.’ I can totally whip up something gorgeous and crazy, which is wonderful, but at the end of the day, it should be less watching so and more demonstrating.
Tell us about The Get Life, which premiered this winter on BRIC TV, Brooklyn’s public access channel.
I wanted to create a new show that featured what I call the five pillars of what everyone struggles with. We’re going for the millennials, but I’m pretty sure everyone struggles with these: food and cooking, relationships, money, fitness and skin. I have never seen anything quite like that on television. It’s a round-robin of segments for each half-hour episode.
How does the show reflect your cooking life beyond baking?
We’re doing all vegan-ish recipes, because I’m pretty much veganish at this point. I eat mostly all plant-based, except for when I’m baking. But I personally come at food with no judgment on anyone’s culture. If you’re eating octopus, that means octopus was readily available and that’s what you had to eat. You made it work. I always say, ‘Egos down.’ Lower the judgment. You want to learn someone’s life story? Sit in the kitchen with them as they cook their favorite meal. You’ll get every secret out of them. The kitchen is a very sacred space.
“After the surgery, I was in the hospital for about a week. I could not stop watching cooking shows. I just loved how they did it, how they moved with the knives and used their tools. It was kind of like ballet, only in food form.”
How did the turn to being vegan-ish come about?
That all started with too many Netflix documentaries. . . . When people hear vegan, they think it’s going to be bird food, or that it won’t taste good. I wanted to squash those misconceptions with this series.
What do you hope people take from the show?
Even though we’re still young and fabulous, we’re growing up. The bills have to be paid. We’re starting new relationships. Many of us are getting married. Before, it was cute that you didn’t know how to cook and you were getting take-out all of the time. Now, not so cute. But it’s never too late to start a new routine. You’re never too old. You’re never too young. You’re never too seasoned to change it up and get your life in order.
How did you become the person who says, “Let’s get a game plan going—let’s do it.”
The work ethic comes from my parents. I grew up—I don’t want to say Oprah poor, because she didn’t have a bathroom— but we grew up pretty low income, and my parents worked like dogs to put me through private school. I feel like I owed it to them to get good grades and graduate from high school with honors and achievements. I owed to it to them to graduate from Rutgers with honors.
Whether it was being low-income, whether it was being from a family of immigrants, whether it was being from a family of people of color, I always felt like I was starting at the lowest rung. My parents told me, and to this day it’s the absolute truth, ‘If you’re a person of color, a woman, whatever, you have to work ten times harder for half the credit.’ That work ethic, that drive, that’s my real talent. Everything else is a cherry on the sundae. Some of us in the culture call it the ‘immigrant hustle.’
Whether you come from a Nigerian background, a Vietnamese background, a Korean background, a Mexican background, that is true to all of us. You know that life is bigger than yourself and that there are people who are counting on you, whether it is emotionally or financially.
Do you feel like the media trope that millennials don’t cook is overblown?
Millennials are like New Yorkers: You either cook or you don’t. It’s ‘I do Seamless’ or ‘I’m always in the kitchen and at the farmers’ market.’ There is no in-between, but I feel like there needs to be, and that’s why I did these cooking videos. That show Worst Cooks in America? I don’t believe in that. If you can read, you can follow a recipe. You don’t have to try to be Ina Garten or anything, but if there’s an Epicurious roast chicken with lemon, you can do that.
What inspired you to bridge that gap?
When I was a kid, there was no ‘What do you want for dinner?’ It was, ‘This is what we’re having. Get your butt in the kitchen and help me cut vegetables.’ Literally, my mom and dad—but mostly my mom—they wanted us to have these important life skills. Ironing clothes. Cooking. All of that stuff. We were forced to do it, and forced grew to like, and like grew to love, and here we are today.
How do you think millennials will shape food culture going forward?
We’re now so intertwined. Just like with the African American movement, the LGBTQ movement, the women’s movement, there’s more acceptance, and I feel like that’s the next frontier in food. Not everyone is eating chicken wings and French fries for dinner. There’s going to be openness and more of a dialogue.
Are there ways your Nigerian roots influence your cooking?
My sister and I always talk about my mom’s infamous beans. She used to make these amazing beans. They were delicious, but for some reason she would throw in the little scotch bonnets, like 15. And our mouths . . . I can’t have anything without pepper. I need cayenne, I need my red pepper flakes, I need scotch bonnet.
Does spice ever make its way into your baking?
I have attempted some spicy situations, like spicy brownies. They were good, but I like to keep the spice in the food aisle.
Do you cook with your mom?
I actually don’t make a lot of Nigerian food. It’s not necessarily complicated. It’s more so that my mom makes it so much better! But she has been teaching me. I said, ‘Mom, I need a masterclass.’ So she has been teaching me how to make some of the easier stuff. There’s a dish called akara. It’s ground black-eyed peas in a paste, and you fry it. It is so good.
What’s next for Baked by Buki?
I do it for fun. I do it so I can get my skills in order. In the grand scheme, I would love for it to be huge and in grocery stores everywhere with my signature bottles. But . . . at this point, I’ll just take an order a week.
Given the media grind, is baking ultimately a meditation?
I don’t think I’ll need a day’s therapy, as long as there’s butter, sugar, flour. It’s the whole process of it: the hum of the mixer, sifting ingredients—and maybe it’s just me, but I lose myself in it. I will forget all of my problems, all of my trouble
Baked by Buki
createtv.com/on/baked-by-buki
Instagram: @the_buki_show
The Get Life
thegetlife.tv
Instragram: @thegetlife
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