Christmas Cupcakes

On the last day of my Food Styling class at Leith's School of Food and Wine, we were lucky enough to have a photography session with a professional food photographer, Stuart Ovenden, who works as the Art Director for BBC Good Food Magazine. We had several weeks to think about our dishes and learn from Sarah Cook and Jennifer Joyce how to style food so that it looks tantalizing, tempting and encourages the reader to want to make it themselves or at least eat it then and there.

Being somewhat of a cake freak, as you may have gathered, I decided to go with something relatively safe, cupcakes! My recent foray into fondant icing decoration, and indeed the imminent Festive Season, inspired my theme of Christmas Cupcakes. The Christmas issue of My Cake Decorating Magazine provided me with the ideas, and the image I wanted to showcase developed from one snowman to a range of Christmas figurines.

Photo by Stuart Ovenden

The above shot, taken on proper equipment, with natural lighting, by a professional and below, taken by me on my camera phone. What a difference...

As you can see, the final shot, taken above on my camera phone in the studio, is so much more appealing than the quick shot I took below, on the kitchen table... but even so, the professional shot just makes it look so, well, professional!

But I'm still quite chuffed with how they turned out. Starting with the snowmen, and draping the 'snow' over the edge to create the body, worked quite well, and the figures got better as I went on.

Santa needs a nose... don't worry, he got one.

Rudolph, as requested by Joey

A fun and fascinating day, and here's hoping there'll be many more of those to come, with a lovely bunch of people and one little toe dipped into the world of Food Styling.