Posts categorized "food photography"

easter baking

Easter is a great time to get a little creative with baking. This year's creations included a cake and a tart, based on the caramel filled easter eggs that are a long time favourite in our house.

The cake is a chocolate cake with a caramel mouse filling, covered with swiss meringue buttercream and chocolate ganache. 

Fiona Carter Easter Egg Cake

My Easter Egg tart has a caramel filling, covered with chocolate ganache and salted caramel swirls.

Fiona Carter's Easter Egg Tart

A few little tarts were made as well, with a little left over caramel mousse...

Fiona Carter's Easter Egg mini tarts

And lastly, a favourite baking treat I've been making for years, the Easter Egg cupcakes... pop a small solid chocolate egg into the batter of cupcakes, bake and you'll have a little chocolatey surprise inside. If you'd like to see more about these cupcakes, I wrote a post several years ago which you can read HERE.

Fiona Carter's Easter Egg cupcakes

Hope you have a happy Easter!

Thanks for visiting.

Cheers

Fiona


lamingtons

Lamingtons baked by Fiona Carter

Lamingtons... a classic little Australian cake enjoyed all over the country! We seem to see more of these delicious little cakes around Australia Day these days, they've almost become a national dish for our day of celebration... along with Aussie lamb, of course!

Lamingtons baked by Fiona Carter

My first exposure to making lamingtons was in the late 1970's. One of our neighbours, who was in her early 20's at the time, had entered into the old Queen of Hearts competition. Back then it was a fundraising competition for, I believe, the Heart Foundation. Young women who entered the competition raised money for the foundation, and who ever raised the most money was crowded the Queen of Hearts for that year.

Anyway, this neighbour organised a lamington drive as one of her fundraising activities. She sold lamingtons in the hundreds, and then gathered as many people from the neighbourhood to help her make the lamingtons to fulfil the orders. I was only about 13 or 14 years old at the time. I remember vividly walking into her house and seeing the sheer scale of the lamington production line in her kitchen and dining room. I sat round their dining room table dunking squares of cake into the giant vat of chocolate icing, then putting the chocolate dripping cake cubes into a huge tray of coconut. It was the next person in the production line's job to ensure the lamingtons were coconut coated perfectly.

When ever I make lamingtons, I think back to this evening. It was one evening a long time ago, one little memory... it was the first time I was exposed to 'cooking' on such a scale. I loved it, loved sitting round the table chatting to our neighbours, loved being busy and loved being part of the lamington production 'team'.

 Lamingtons baked by Fiona Carter

I've been making lamingtons this week.

I altered the usual formula of sponge cake with a runny chocolate icing. My lamingtons were made from a vanilla cake which was lightly flavoured with orange. I then soaked the slab cake with a fresh coconut milk panna cotta (inspired by Flour and Stone, who use a vanilla panna cotta with their delicious lamingtons). I then coated the cake squares in a dark chocolate ganache before coating them in the coconut.

Lamingtons baked by Fiona Carter

I also decided to take the humble little lamington to another level this year by creating a lamington cake.

Baked by Fiona Lamington Cake, vanilla cake with a raspberry and white chocolate mousse filling. Coated with chocolate and coconut

In between two layers of vanilla cake is a raspberry and white chocolate mousse. The cake was then coated with a milk chocolate ganache, coconut and dark chocolate ganache drips.

Baked by Fiona Lamington Cake, vanilla cake with a raspberry and white chocolate mousse filling. Coated with chocolate and coconut

The origins of the lamington are a little uncertain, but it seems as through the chef of Lord Lamington (Governor of Queensland from 1896 to 1901) created these little cakes. There are a few stories, however, the story I favour is that they were created by accident. The chef dropped some sponge cake into chocolate and sprinkled coconut over them to try and make this 'disaster' more appealing. 

One of the best disasters in history, in my opinion!

Thanks for visiting!

Cheers

Fiona

 

Craftsy: Free Cake Decorating Classes


The Blue Ducks cookbook with a chocolate and beetroot brownie

The house is quite, everyone's returned to school, uni and work today. I'm back to work too, I'll be packing Ribbons Galore orders today.

But just before I get back into work, just wanted to share a little story.

FEC-three-blue-ducks-cookbook

My gorgeous 17 year old, who had a lovely few days in Byron Bay with friends last week, went to the Three Blue Ducks for lunch and, knowing how I love a photo of good food, sent me a beautiful image of her lunch. It looked so delicious, it made me want to jump in the car and drive to Byron to have lunch!! (see below, pork, crackling, apple… I was dissecting the photo when she sent it through)

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muffin monday : raspberry and white chocolate muffins

Fiona Carter raspberry and white chocolate muffins

The school holidays are almost finished which means back to school... back to making some snacks for the lunch/morning/afternoon teas. I've just realised that I have just over one year left of school lunches/snacks, with my baby getting towards the end of her high school days. I'm sure I'll still be making muffins long after our family's school days have finished, though!

Muffins are quick to make, easy to mix, and as long as you don't over mix the mixture, are delicious, moist, tasty and tender. You can pack them with different flavourings as well. A favourite in our house is the classic muffin flavour combination of raspberry and white chocolate. I've been trying to make a lot of new bakery goodies lately, and this is a newish muffin recipe which I've been experimenting with.

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100% hands on fun food photography & styling workshop with Sneh Roy

A couple of weeks back I returned to Cook Republic HQ for another workshop with Sneh Roy. This time it was a practical food styling and photography workshop directed by Sneh. (You can read about my first Cook Republic workshop HERE).

We started the morning constructing our own morning refreshment. We were presented with table of delicious fruits, nuts, granola and yoghurts that we styled and then photographed.

Fiona Carter food photography

Sneh discussed several food styling methods and we were encouraged to style and photograph each one. Styling with only one prop was interesting…

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