Well eu sunt o impatimita a gatitului dar mai ales a dulciurilor. Asa ca va impartasesc astazi doua dintre retetele mele preferate pentru prajituri . A se tine minte ca eu ador visinele , ciresele , dovleacul,merele , ciocolata, caramelul si vanilia. Asa ca retele se vor invarti in jurul acestor ingrediente

100g de mais à pop-corn
2 cuillères à soupe d’huile
3 cuillères à soupe de sucre

Dans une sauteuse, mettre l’huile à chauffer

Y ajouter le maïs

Mettre le couvercle et laisser “poper”

Ajouter le sucre et mélanger jusqu’à ce que les pop-corn blondissent

Caramel Pecan Candy
-Dick Deacon, Taste of Home Holiday Nov/Dec ‘09

• 1/3 cup plus 1/2 cup butter, divided
• 20 cream-filled chocolate sandwich cookies (Oreos), crushed
• 1 pkg (14oz) caramels
• 3 cups chopped pecans, toasted

Topping:

• 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 3 Tbsp butter
• 3 Tbsp heavy whipping cream
• 3 Tbsp light corn syrup
• 3/4 tsp vanilla extract

1. In a large saucepan, melt 1/3 cup butter over medium heat; stir in the cookie crumbs. Press into an ungreased 9″ square baking dish. Bake at 325*F for 10-12 minutes or until set. Cool on a wire rack. Meanwhile, in a small saucepan, melt caramels and remaining butter over low heat. Stir in the pecans. Pour over crust. Cool.

2. For topping, in a small saucepan, combine the chocolate chips, butter, cream and corn syrup. Cook and stir over low heat until smooth. Remove from the heat; stir in vanilla. Pour over caramel layer. Cool on a wire rack. Refrigerate until chocolate hardens. Let candy stand at room temperature for 5-10 minutes before cutting into 1″ squares. Store in the refrigerator.

My ingredients.

Cookie crumb crust cooling, pecans toasting, caramels and butter melting.

As you can see in the above picture, I opted to use vanilla cream cookies in place of the Oreo-style cookies. You can also see that I did not use a 9″ square pan, because I don’t have one! So my pan is about 8×11″.

Making the chocolate topping.

The recipe did not specify using a double boiler to make the chocolate topping. But it worked really well. If I ever make this again (doubtful), I may try a double boiler for the caramel layer too.

The finished, half-eaten, product.

This is a delicious candy that went over well with the entire Thanksgiving crowd. But I have a list as to why I may never make this candy again:

• it is quite expensive to make
• it is nearly impossible to cut, even after letting it set out
• the chocolate softens and runs its ooey gooey self everywhere in a very short period of time

FESTIVE RECIPE – FOR THE FIRST TIME COOK

Like many others, Christmas is my favorite time of the year.  Family, friends, and of course food are the most essential ingredients to a Merry Christmas.  Here is a simple Christmas dessert that is sure to bring back the festive feelings after the stresses of decorating and hectic holiday shopping.

  ALFAJORES

For those of you who do not know what Alfajores are I would describe them as an oozy, indulgent, perfectly packaged biscuit sandwich filled with Dulce de Leche ( Manjar Blanco ).  The original biscuit recipe is a little time-consuming so here is a simple and faster way to make them.

INGREDIENTS

24  all butter Viennese biscuits or all-butter shortbread rounds

2 cups Dulce de leche ( Manjar Blanco)

METHOD

1-  To assemble take one biscuit and generously spoon the Dulce de Leche to cover it completely on one side.

2- Then take another biscuit and press them together to make a Sandwich.

3- In some Alfajores recipes they suggest you roll the edges in shaved coconut.  The coconut will stick to the Dulce de Leche that is oozing out of the sandwich.   This is an option that can be omitted or not depending on whether you like coconut.  Last but not least, sprinkle the Alfajores with a little icing sugar. 

TIP -  Dulce de Leche is a caramel sauce sold in jars and is becoming more and more available.  If you can’t find it this is an easy way to make it yourself.

Remove the label of a can of condensed milk and place the unopened can in a pot of water.  Make sure the water reaches the top of the can.  Simmer gently for about 2 hours.  Keep adding more water when needed.  After 2 hours let the can cool completely and then open it.  The result should be a light brown, soft, gooey caramel sauce or Dulce de Leche.

First day of Advent!  Time to make something heavenly: Gebrannte Mandeln (Caramelized almonds). You can prepare them at home, no special equipment needed. Only a stove, a pot, a wooden spoon and some parchment paper.

After some attempts years ago, I noted the best mix of sugar, almonds, and water. Before, I once had tried to make gebrannte Mandeln with my sister. The result was more like something from hell than from heaven: some almonds floating in a black, bubbling hot brew which smelled burned – but with the mix I give you here, it works well.

you’ll need:
200 g almonds (no need to hull them)
100 g sugar
50 ml water
1/2 tsp cinnamom

Put some parchment paper on a table (the table shouldn’t be heat-sensitive). Heat the sugar and the water in a large pot, add the cinnamom. Let it boil for some minutes, add the almonds. Continue boiling and stir once in a while. After some time the water will evaporate and moist sugar will cover the almonds. Don’t stop now! Everything’s perfect! Just continue stirring – now you should stir nonstop. The sugar will start to caramelize. As soon as all almonds are covered by caramelized sugar (don’t caramelize for too much time – they become bitter then) put them on the parchment paper. Use two forks to separate them from each other. Don’t try to use your fingers – it will hurt, the sugar is very hot!! Let them cool and they are ready to serve.

If you watch your pot now: don’t get desperate. There’s no reason for it. Just fill the pot with water. Wait some hours. Change the water. Wait some hours. Now the caramel should have gone. If not: change the water. Wait some hours…

If you’ve ever enjoyed a rice crispy treat in your life, no matter how many years ago, chances are your mind will be blown by the delicious creations produced by The Crispery.  I don’t typically consider rice crispy treats when I think of dessert – I’m more a cookie / brownie / cheesecake / flan / molten lava cake kind of a girl.  But when I saw a towering display of these at Central Market, I had to have one.

The first thing I noticed was their size – one of these could feed a family of four, I’m sure.  The ones that caught my eye had been sliced horizontally down the middle and sandwiched around a thick layer of gooey caramel and another of marshmallow.  Once I had it in my hands, I couldn’t get over how soft it was (seriously, I couldn’t stop poking it. I know – it’s weird).

I figured after so much manhandling I should probably buy one, so I did.  It was so good, I kept cutting little pieces off for days and enjoying it a bit at a time (much like Homer and the party sub – except that rice crispy treats have a perfect shelf life for this kind of bizarre behavior).

Since I was visiting my sister in Texas when I made this crispy discovery, I was pretty sad thinking that I might not have access to The Crispery’s stuff back in Michigan.  But no!  All of their crispies are available for order online!  There’s a minimum purchase amount of $12.95, and then of course shipping, so I might have to wait until I seriously need a fix to indulge, but it eases my mind to know that I don’t have to fly all the way back to Texas to get one.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at home this year.  Our first since we married 16 years ago.  Later in the evening we joined my grandparents and other loved ones for desert.  Knowing that all the traditional Thanksgiving deserts would be there, I decided to try something a little different.  A friend of mine gave me this recipe and this picture doesn’t do the desert justice.  It is so yummy I had to share. 

• 18 ounce sugar cookie dough (premade is fine)
• 1 (8 ounce) cream cheese
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 large green apples or 3-4 smaller ones
• 1/4 cup caramel ice cream topping
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
2. Set cream cheese out to warm up a little
3. Roll out cookie dough (3/4″ thick) into a large pizza pan or cookie sheet.
4. Bake cookie dough appx. 17 minutes
5. Cool cookie dough for 10 minutes
6. Blend cream cheese, brown sugar, peanut butter, and vanilla.
7. Spread mixture evenly over cookie.
8. Peel and cut apples into bite size chunks.
9. Put apples evenly over cookie.
10. Microwave caramel topping appx. 45 seconds
11. Drizzle topping evenly over apples.
12. Sprinkle chopped pecans over apples.

Our Thanksgiving Dinner

My wonderful grandparents and children!

Has anyone in San Francisco had these yet? I want them!!

Moi qui adore la mousse au chocolat et le caramel au beurre salé, je suis servie avec cette recette (trouvée ici)!

Mousse au Chocolat et Caramel Beurre Salé

- 200g de chocolat pâtissier

- 100g de sucre en poudre

- 60g de beurre salé

- 10cl de crème liquide

- 6 oeufs

Séparer les blancs d’œufs des jaunes. Battre les blancs en neige très ferme.

Faire caraméliser le sucre dans une casserole à sec à feu doux. Le caramel doit être blond clair.

Dans une autre casserole, porter la crème à ébullition et l’ ajouter le caramel. Ne pas cesser de remuer pour éviter des cristaux ou des agglomérats et ne surtout pas reprendre l’ébullition. Y ajouter le beurre salé coupé en dés.

Pendant ce temps, faire fondre le chocolat au bain marie. Hors du feu, ajouter les jaunes d’œufs et le caramel. Si la consistance est trop épaisse, ajouter un peu de crème liquide bouillante.

Mélanger le chocolat aux blancs en neige délicatement, et mettre au frigo pendant au moins 2h.

C’est un régal!!!! Bon appétit!

(Please for the love of all that is holy and delicious, do NOT skip the text & scroll directly to the photos.  It’s so much funnier if you understand where I’m coming from)

Y’all know I’m a good baker.  My cheesecakes never crack; my breads always have a lovely brown crust and airy, perfect center; I can bake 96 snickerdoodles in an evening without breaking a sweat.

HOWEVER (there’s always a however), nobody’s perfect.

Boy-oh-boy, am I ever imperfect.

A co-worker has a birthday is this week.  For each co-worker’s birthday, I bake him or her their favorite item – now that everyone’s gotten a pretty fair idea of my repertoire, I’m getting some special requests.  “I love your chocolate chip cookies, Kate.”  “That coffee cake you brought a few weeks ago was great!”  This guy, though, threw me a curveball:  “I want a turtle cake!”

So I thought about what that might entail, I looked around online for some ideas and inspiration, and last night I took to the kitchen to create a delicious turtle cake.

My vision:  chocolate cake (Johnson family recipe), fudgy chocolate frosting, caramel and pecans drizzled atop.  A veritable vision of gooey deliciousness.

It was doomed from the start.  My cakes didn’t come cleanly out of the pans.  The fudgy frosting (Paula Deen’s recipe) was a total bust; neither fudgy nor frosting-y.  I used the wrong plate (amateur mistake; I should know better!), one that was tapered toward the center rather than flat at the bottom.  Just about the only thing that went *right* was the caramel topping (caramels + butter + sweetened condensed milk) with a cup of finely chopped hand-picked pecans from Grandma’s property stirred in.

But still I pressed onward, to the point of full assembly.  And when it was done I stood back, took a good look at it, and bellowed…

“JEFFFFFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

He ran into the room, came to a full stop, and…laughed hysterically.  It’s just that bad.

Don’t believe me?  See for yourself (Keepin’ it real, yo.):

No, I’m not kidding.  I really wish I was.  I really, REALLY wish I could say “ah-ha! Just kidding!  Here is the real cake!” and unveil a masterpiece of epic proportions.  But I can’t.  That’s it.

Shall we have another angle?

Danger!  Mudslide ahead!  Or, if you squint, Danger! Big Mac ahead!

Despite Jeff’s insistence (though his tears of laughter) that I should take it to work anyway, I just can’t.  I CAN’T.  No one deserves this for their birthday.  Not my worst enemy, and certainly not a co-worker who I feel neutral-leaning-to-friendly towards.

My in-laws are about to be the proud recipients of the ugliest, delicious-est cake in the history of ugly delicious cakes.  Lucky them.

And me?  I’m going to try again after Thanksgiving.  Think I should tweak things a bit for next time?

I recommend bookmarking this post for the next time you need a good, deep belly laugh.  I know I’m sure going to.

PS>This morning I whipped up a batch of chocolate chip muffins with streusel topping and brought those in instead, then showed my co-workers a picture of what I almost brought them.  We all laughed heartily, and I cried a bit inside.

CY is not the biggest chocoholic but whilst perusing the shelves of Tesco on the weekly household shop, these little naughties caught my eye. As a big fan of Dairy Milk Buttons, I thought it’d be rude not to give these a try. Verdict? Colonel Scrum Yum! Perfect for a little indulgence and a quick-fire sugar fix!

A short but important (to me) note on a Twix.

My grandmother was a fantastic lady who fought cancer gallantly and eventually lost. She died when I was 18 and I still think of her and her husband (my Papa, who died 6 months before her) everyday. I wonder does anyone else have a strong emotion attached to a biscuit like me?

Every Sunday my Nana, in those later years of my teenage life, would come over to my parents home for supper after church. I was usually studying or trying to watch TV and didn’t fully appreciate the time I had with her then; ah, the pain of hindsight. Anyway, she always bought me a Twix, sometimes a double Twix and I now associate them with her. When I eat one I feel her presence, is that silly?

So, do you think of it as a biscuit or a chocolate bar? It’s one of those ones that crosses the barrier. A biscuit base with caramel on top all covered in chocolate. Until I die I shall demand that it be recognised as biscuit and with all my energy, I shall challenge you to duel if you disagree. My Nana called it a biscuit and therefore it was/is. She also kept them in the fridge, the chocolate was nicer that way and the caramel took longer to melt.

How do you eat yours??  I break it in half, take one half at a time and nibble the chocolate from around the edges, eat off the caramel and thoroughly enjoy it melting on my tongue, then eat the crunchy base. Good grief, I’m dribbling all over the place thinking about it. To just eat it as is, is sacrilege and will not be tolerated in my home! But I respect your right to eat your Twix in whatever way you wish, out of my sight. My way, is the proper way though and that should go without saying really.

Do you have a biscuit with an emotional attachment?

Carrie Gault. plain

**You will notice that, this being Carrie’s fifth post, she has been formally awarded the title plain. Details of the honours system can be found here.

She is the first of our honoured contributors to have reached this level and we salute her.      Ave, Carrie.plain

From my own personal baking box, I release for the first time: my infamous Chocolate Caramel Marshmallow Cookies.

Ingredients:

1 (12 oz) pkg semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup caramel bits (or a bag of caramels, chopped to tiny bits…which is much, much harder)

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 large eggs

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

Approximately 50 miniature marshmallows

Preheat oven: 400F

Directions:

In a bowl off to the side, combine:  flour, baking powder, and salt.  Set aside until later.

Note: It is important to use a decent-sized pot for the next part, because the pot is going to become your mixing bowl.  Keep that in mind before you start melting things!

Melt the butter and 1/2 cup of chocolate chips over low heat, stirring almost constantly (burnt chocolate smells and tastes icky, so pay attention).  Once liquid, turn off stove and remove the pot from the burner.

Stir in sugar and vanilla.  Allow to cool for a minute or two to avoid cooking the eggs you are about to add…then add eggs (okay, okay…stir them in, one at a time).

Now, retrieve the small bowl and stir flour mixture into the pot a little at a time to avoid making a huge mess.

Fun part: Add in caramel bits and remaining chocolate chips.  Keep an eye on how much caramel you are adding, though.  The hardest part about these cookies is getting them off the sheet if you’ve added too much caramel, so be aware!

Drop by rounded teaspoon (or melon baller) onto an ungreased cookie sheet.

Tricky part: Press one miniature marshmallow into each cookie on the sheet.  Then, pull up the sides of each cookie until the marshmallow is hidden.  This keeps the marshmallow from burning, so don’t forget this step!

Bake: 6-7 minutes at 400F.  Cookies are done when they appear less shiny and there is a slight change in the color of the edges.  Be careful; since these are darker brown cookies, it is tempting to let them stay in the oven too long.  Don’t do it!  Not only will they burn in a short time, but caramel is a b*%&@ to get off cookie sheets once burnt on.  That being said, I must also insert the obligatory, “Your first sheet is the test batch; all ovens are not created equal, so adjust time according to how that batch turns out,” warning.

Important Removal Note: Remove these cookies from the cookie sheets promptly (ie. no more than 10 minutes after getting them out of the oven) .  The goal is to remove them before the caramel cools completely.  Once it is cooled, you will have to fight to get the cookies to part from the sheet, and that never, ever, ever ends well.

These cookies store reasonably well and ship well (when frozen and protected from being squished).  As always, I recommend putting them in tupperware of some sort soon after baking to keep the moisture in.

The PTO ladies brought snacks to the session last week. One of the treats that disappeared quite quickly (with good reason!) was called “Prolos” – A Rolo sandwiched between two pretzels. HOLY COW, Yu-um. And easy enough to make with your kids!

I lined 3 cookie sheets (mine are stoneware) with parchment paper and put one in front of each kid. Then I put a pile of “heart pretzels” (as Burke calls them) by the cookie sheets and told the kids to spread them out over the cookie sheets.

Placing Pretzels

Once Logan realized he wasn’t supposed to just eat the pretzels, he got in on the fun too.

Then came the Rolos. We unwrapped them and placed one on each pretzel. (Again, Logan had a hard time with the “Don’t eat them yet!” heh)

Rolos on Top

Maggie liked putting them on up-side-down. Not sure why… After a few tries, Logan would chant “No eat.” each time I handed him an unwrapped Rolo.

Put them in the oven (at 350) for about 2 minutes. Just enough to get them squishy.

Making the Rolos Squishy

2 Minutes is STILL a Long Time to Wait

Be careful when you take the cookie sheet out – squishy Rolos tend to slide a bit…

Sliding Rolos

While the Rolos are still warm, place another pretzel on top and press down slightly. (I did this while the kids watched … Hot stoneware plus 3 kids makes me nervous!)

Pressed Pretzels

Put in the refrigerator to harden the chocolate. After an hour or so, you can transfer them to an air-tight container.

Store in the Fridge so the chocolate doesn’t melt too much, but be sure to take them out a little while before you want to serve them. (Otherwise the caramel is a tooth hazard…)

Let’s face it: Just about everything tastes better fried. For example: Fried dough, which takes something rather ordinary and makes it almost invariably awesome. How do you top that? Well, literally, cinnamon and sugar is nice, as is powdered sugar. Even better? Nutella, the chocolate-hazelnut spread that’s a serious contender for Best Thing Ever. So consider, then, the potential deliciousness of the dessert I tried last week during a lunchtime stop at Plaza Fiesta, a Hispanic shopping center just south of Charlotte: It was a churro, a.k.a. Spanish fried dough, rolled in cinnamon and sugar and filled with Nutella. YES. (Btw: I love how basically every country has its own type of fried dough, proving that the concept knows no boundaries, and has endless variations!)

The Plaza Fiesta food court seems to draw a healthy lunchtime crowd, and serves authentic Mexican and Latin dishes (many things with rice, beans, pork and plantains; pupusas; sandwiches named after soccer stars) in addition to pizza, Greek, Chinese, Subway and ice cream. The eatery that most lives up to its name is Churro Station, a franchise specializing in golden-brown sticks of fried dough. Nearly a foot long, they’re sort of ridged tubes, as if extruded from a Play-Doh press and dropped in hot oil. Churro Station sells both filled and unfilled varieties, though given the delicious filling choices, there was no question which route I’d take. My Nutella churro came wrapped in wax paper, oozing chocolatey goodness, with a crisp exterior and semi-cakey inside. Needless to say, it did not last long. And though I have no doubt that Churro Station’s take on the treat is not exactly the apotheosis of the Churro – the dough could’ve been a little lighter, I have to imagine, and the churro had been sitting out under a hot lamp, instead of straight out of the fryer – it was most definitely proof of the power of a little fried dough and chocolate.

The picture below does not in any way do the churro justice, having been taken one-handed, with my cell phone. Nonetheless:

As the proud owner of the world’s smallest amount of willpower, especially when it comes to food, I should also note that I also happened to be driving by Plaza Fiesta the next day at lunchtime. Naturally, I stopped again, this time ordering a churro with cajeta, or dulce de leche made with part goat’s milk. This was a promising combination in theory, but I then saw the woman at the counter lazily squirt the cajeta from an industrial plastic bottle onto the top of the churro in intermittent blobs. The churro wasn’t quite as fresh as the one the day before, and she didn’t take the time to roll it in the cinnamon sugar, either. And because the churro wasn’t as hot, the cajeta-from-a-bottle didn’t really melt onto the dough. It just kind of sat there. Was it ok? Yeah, I mean, it’s hard to totally screw up fried dough. But it was a far cry from its choco-hazelnut sibling – at least as far as Churro Station is concerned.

I love the way sugar transforms into a rich, silky caramel with nothing more than a pan and some heat. I melt the sugar until it turns golden brown. I then add a mixture of nuts that toast instantly from the heat of the sugar. I add a mixture of ground allspice and ancho chile. I then add the cream and a cloud forms and the sugar disappears. Moments later the cloud comes to a rest and the sugar re-appears as a silky, golden caramel sauce with a luscious combination of nuts all bathing in the sauce. The allspice is such a natural with the ice cream that the sauce is bound for. The ancho chile powder keeps you guessing and gives the sweet dessert the savory balance it needs. There is very little heat and the chile is not overwhelming. When the sauce hits the ice cream you understand the true meaning of holy matrimony! You now have an entirely new decadent sauce in the bottom of your bowl as the caramel sauce mixes with the melted ice cream. The nuts stay perched on top of the ice cream for a moment until they give in to the temptation to dive into the sauce.

I always need dessert at the end of a meal. Sometimes I buy a fancy dessert, sometimes I make a fancy dessert and sometimes I don’t have the time, money or energy for either. I created this late one night after a dinner party. Everyone was in the mood for something sweet but I had very little on hand. Sometimes the last-minute dishes are the best ones. Give it a try. Enjoy!

½ C. granulated sugar
¼ C. each of walnuts, green pumpkin seeds, peanuts and slivered almonds (you can use any form or combination of nuts that you have on hand or like).
½ tsp allspice
½ tsp ground ancho chile (or chile powder)
½ tsp salt
¾ C. heavy cream

Place the sugar in a medium size pot with a large surface area (you don’t want the sugar to be deep). Cook over medium heat. DO NOT touch or stir because it will potentially form crystals that will make the sauce seize up.
When the sugar starts to become golden you can swirl the pan gently. Once fully golden add the nuts, the spices and the salt. Allow the mixture to become a little darker than you think it should because the cream will lighten it up.
Pour in the cream and turn off the heat. Whisk to combine. Be careful, this stuff is really hot! Pour over ice cream. Resist doing shots of this even though you will be tempted!
Eat Well, Enjoy life, Be happy

this week. i’ve woken up with food in my bed 3 times.

3 TIMES!

day 1–tostitos (no salsa.)

day 2–popcorn (cheddar, butter, AND caramel!)

day 3–pizza (from artichoke–so good. so all over my bed.)

the pizza was definitely a new low.  thank god i have a purple duvet cover! (gayest sentence ever.)  but seriously guys, it’s time i sought some help.  now, i’m trying a new thing: no food in the bedroom.  no exceptions.  not even drunk munchies.  i know, it’s rash, but drastic situations call for drastic measures.  i hope i can count on all of your support during this tough period in my life.

face to face

food. in. my. bed.

friends forever

Caramelised banana, frozen raspberry, and white chocolate truffle

Food Preparation/Creation

The longest part of the prep is the caramelisation of the banana pieces. After cutting the banana into small pieces, I rolled them on a bowl of caster sugar and use chopstick to pick it up and put it on the open flame to burn the sugar until it caramelised. And I have to do it one by one. I wish I had a butane flame blower to do this – much much quicker. Then I let them cool before I put them into the verrine.

The rest is really easy. A couple of pieces of raspberry and then the white choc truffle. I had this white choc truffle that my wife made as part of her French Pattisserie class (how convenient). Then I top it up it a mini mint leaves from my herb pot.

That all sound easy, but I did have to assemble the verrine twice. If you’ve dealt with frozen raspberry before, you’ll know that it doesn’t stay frozen too long. Adding on top of that, I was shooting on one the hottest day in Sydney that time (the temperature peaks at 41 degree Celcius that day). So what happened was I did my first verrine fine and beautiful with the truffle pop out a little bit higher than the verrine glass. As I prepare the scene and the props, etc the truffle has sunk to half the height of the verrine glass. The raspberry layer just get squashed as the raspberries reach the room temperature and become really soft. I decided to keep going and finalise my props before I make the second version. Gotta be quick with frozen stuff. That’s one of the hard part in shooting food stuff.

The Shooting

As with the props, I choose to put a cup of black coffee on the background along with a relatively sizeable sugar container. I wanted to convey the dinner mood at the dessert time. The sugar container sort of reinforce the “sweetness” of the dessert – at the same time balanced out by a black coffee, giving a bit of that coffee-bitter taste so that the overal scene is not to “sweet”.

I also deliberately choose black coloured coffee cup so it almost “blends” in with the dark background and doesn’t become distracting. With the big sugar container, I wasn’t quite sure about it initially because I thought it could be distracting because it’s going to look like a big bright blob at the background. But it kinda turned out ok I think. Maybe the neutral colour with some blurred writings on it makes it work. It sort of draw your eye away a bit from the verrine so forcing your eyes to explore the entire frame a bit more instead of just fixated on the verrine glass.

Camera is really at low angle this time to accentuate the height of the verrine. Also, with low angle, the layer is more visible as is, ie not “squashed” because of the high angle perspective. I did play a bit with exposure to make sure that the frozen ice layer on the raspberry is correctly exposed.

I covered the surface with black cloth to create the low key shot. Soft light is positioned at the usual 10 o’clock direction. Big reflector from 4 o’clock direction elevated quite high so it doesn’t produce a reflection on the glass. I also choose to use portrait orientation because I thought it goes better with the shape of the verrine.

Camera settings are 100mm at F5.6 1/4 second at ISO100.

Observation

A bit of reflection of coffee cup on the glass – again I left it as is. A spot highlight appears on the bottom right of the glass, casting a bright spotlight on the dark surface. I find it quite interesting. Obviously it comes from the softbox and get refracted that way. I’m still trying to get my feel on the type of the verrine glass that’s suitable for dessert or savoury. Some says tall verrines are good for savoury whereas low wide verrines are good for dessert. I deliberately make it the otherway around this time. What’s your take?

Mmmm! From Kraft Foods – Moist Caramel Apple Cake

                                                              joyosity – Flickr.com

My sister has made this a few times and e-mailed me the recipe directly from www.KraftFoods.com - Thanks Lisa!