Food stylist/photographer in the making?
Don’t know about that, but these muffins sure are good. Yesterday morning I was able to get up and sneak into the kitchen and start making these while both children were sleeping. (Quite amazing as it was after 7:30 and Elliott’s usually up at least an hour earlier.) In an impressive feat of organisation (in my mind, anyway), I had measured and bagged all the dry ingredients needed for the muffins the last time I made a batch. All I had to do was whisk the wet ingredients and add some raisins.
These muffins are surprisingly addictive, given they don’t contain any chocolate and they’re moderately healthy thanks to the oats, wheat bran, vegetable oil and buttermilk. They make a great breakfast, but are equally as good any other time that hunger strikes. The recipe comes from 500 Cupcakes: The Only Cupcake Compendium You’ll Ever Need
Here’s my version of the recipe:
225g (8oz) plain flour
200g (7oz) brown sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
40g (1 1/2 oz) wheat bran
40g (1 1/2 oz) porridge oats
pinch of salt
450ml (16 fl oz) buttermilk
2 lightly beaten eggs
175ml (6 fl oz) vegetable oil
175g (6oz) raisins
Preheat the oven to 175C (350F/Gas mark 4) and grease a muffin tin or tins (see above) or line with muffin cases.
Mix the dry ingredients together with a spoon in a medium bowl and whisk the wet ingredients together in a large bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir until almost blended, then fold in the raisins.
Spoon the mixture into the tin or tins. Bake for 20 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the muffins comes out clean. Take tin from oven and cool for 5 minutes before removing muffins and cooling on a rack.
These muffins keep well for a few days in an airtight container. Not that they last that long here! You can freeze them, too. And of course, there are many ways you could vary them, by substituting something else for the raisins, although I never have. Hmmm, chocolate chips, though…
As for my photography:
There’s much I (clearly) need to learn. I know the right light’s pretty important, but I don’t exactly know what the right light is or where/when to find it. I doubt it was in my dark kitchen on a wet and windy Wednesday morning. I took a few photos, but I think these two are the best. And that’s saying something! The top one was taken with the flash and the on below without. That’s probably pretty obvious. I’m not sure which one’s better (or worse). Maybe I should have zoomed in when I used the flash so it wasn’t so glary? Not sure. I’d appreciate some feedback if anyone has any. Otherwise I’ll just keep plodding along, slowly learning a bit here and there like I so often do. 
* WPG2 Plugin Not Validated *
John Dalton said,
June 28, 2007 @ 9:56 pm
They look yummy! Preparing things the night before and having a pre-dawn cooking session is a pretty tricky idea, too
(oh, the photo links are broken: I found pictures here: http://thefruitsofmylabour.com/gallery/v/baking_and_cooking/)
I’m no photography expert, and I’ve been trying to learn too. But I’ve been doing a few adult-ed courses down here, and trying to experiment a bit more, so that I think I’m starting to approach “enthusiastic amateur” status. Here are my thoughts - probably *far* too much detail, but you asked
The camera was probably a bit close on the flash shot, so that the muffins in the front are reflecting all the light. The rule I’ve heard is that shots with flash should try and have the subjects all be as close to equal distance from the flash as possible, otherwise there’s a huge contrast between the well lit and poorly lit subjects. Still, I think I like this photo better
Have you tried cropping it to remove some of the glare down the bottom?
I think the colours in the second photo are nicer because it’s using natural light, but unfortunately it’s a little blurry. Your gallery software says the shutter speed was 0.59 seconds for this shot, which is too slow to get a clear picture when you’re holding the camera by hand. You could have tried a mini tripod, or just stuck the camera on top of something. I find the time-delay option handy in those situations too. Alternatively, you could have tried to increase ambient light (turn on more lights!) or see if you can increase the ISO speed (buried in a menu somewhere probably). That would let you have a shorter exposure time, which would help get a sharper picture.
You don’t want to zoom in in low light conditions if you can avoid it.. zooming in reduces the amount of light you get, which makes these problems even harder to deal with.
Anyway, that’s enough from me!
P.S. Don’t suppose you have any good fudge recipes?
linda said,
June 29, 2007 @ 1:58 pm
Thanks for the photography tips, John! I think they’ll help. I actually have a few of what are probably very good fudge recipes, but I’ve only tried making fudge once. That was last August for a road trip we went on and it’s not that the fudge didn’t taste good, it’s just it was not the correct consistency. We ended up calling it “faux fudge” - it tasted like fudge, but it didn’t feel like fudge, if you know what I mean. I will not be beaten, though, so I’m going to take your request as a challenge and have another attempt. I’ll report back with (hopefully better) photos and details.
And thanks for pointing out the broken links. My technical assistant (yes, Chris, who is actually more like my technical director) and I are working on the problem.
Emily said,
June 30, 2007 @ 4:53 pm
Those are (without a doubt) delicious and I want several of them now. If only I had the resources here to make them.
As for the photography, I can only make an observation. Your kitchen is very dim. You should find additional lights around the house or even purchase a lamp for future shots. Just an idea. John obviously has way more of a clue than me.
John Dalton said,
July 4, 2007 @ 2:22 pm
I look forward to the results of your fudge challenge!
Emily has the right idea re: lamps - I’ve used our bedside table lamps before, when I needed extra light