It is Christmas, After All!

It's that time of year again, where rich, luxurious Christmas food and drink takes priority over the diet! It would only be appropriate to share some of the images from our festive photo shoot and get you all in the mood for turkey and all the trimmings.
Jewel like colours create a sumptuous setting for the most indulgent food, contrasting with the icy blue-white background for the more traditional dishes of turkey and Christmas pudding.

Hope over the Christmas period, you feast as well as we did and have a fantastic break with your friends and family. It's time to celebrate! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

James Martin's United Cakes of America

Alongside James Martin's recent Good Food show on UKTV I shot a beautiful selection of recipes from the series. Inspired by favourite American cakes James put his own twist on much loved classics. I do love nothing better than a cake shoot. And no, not because I get to try them all, I just think they make such pretty easily shot subjects.

Connect with Charlotte 

Instagram | Facebook | Visit her website

Sourdough crackers

I am glad to report that my passion for sourdough bread making has continued. So much so that I would say 90% of the time I am eating my own sourdough bread for breakfast (rye with lashings of butter and damson jam) and sometimes for lunch as well. If I'm not eating the bread, then I can almost certainly be found eating sourdough crackers with strong cheese and a flick of chutney. The sourdough crackers have gone down tremendously well with everyone I have shared them with. In fact I have to limit how many I put out as they will all be gone if I turn away. The recipe below makes a large quantity of crackers, say around 30. They do take a while to roll out and bake, I think I have got it down to just over an hour to get through the whole batch of dough. However, they store very well, so it's worth making a batch which should last you at least a month... Well, saying that, if you like them as much as everyone seems to, they may disappear a lot quicker!

Image © Charlotte Tolhurst

Sourdough Crackers as taught to me by Jane Mason, original recipe Helene Johannson from the Brunkebergs Bageri.

500g full fat milk
40g honey
30g rye sourdough starter
500g light rye flour
250g white wheat flour
20g salt
5g bicarb of soda
10g ground fennel (or ginger, cinnamon, cumin, caraway. I use whole fennel seeds)

*Combine ingredients and knead for 10-15 minutes. It will be very sticky so a scraper is recommended.
*Pop the dough in a bowl and cover and let it rest overnight.
*The next day divide the dough into little balls of 50g or so, the size of a ping pong ball.
*Flour the board well with rye flour and roll very thinly into flat rounds or oblongs. Prick liberally with a fork, a pokey swedish rolling pin or, in my case, a meat tenderiser as pictured below.
*Transfer to a baking tray lined with baking paper.
*Spray with water and sprinkle with any of salt, poppy seeds, sesame seeds, cumin seeds, fennel seeds, caraway seeds or dried herbs.
*Bake at 210˚ for 10-12 minutes. Let them cool completely on wire rack.

Connect with Charlotte 

Instagram | Facebook | Visit her website

New year new resolutions

Guess what one of my new year's resolutions is? Yep, to update my blog more, shoot more of my own recipes for it and get tweeting. It occurred to me that I really do cook a fair bit, visit supper clubs and restaurants, attend cooking courses and in the course of all this activity find myself having something to say about things. So, why not write about it. It'll be a good diary for myself of my exploits and hopefully of use to others. So here goes.

Linking up nicely to the idea of new year's resolutions, one of my many 2011 resolutions was to learn how to bake sourdough bread. Come November this had not been ticked off the list. Then I came across Jane Mason's one day sourdough course which happened to be on a Saturday I was free, in November, thus still in time to fulfill my 2011 resolve. I booked it immediately hardly even reading up on what it entailed. In hindsight I suppose it was just meant to be. What a wholly inspiring, fun, carb laden day it was. Here some snaps to give an idea of things.

Not only did we learn how to make rye and wheat sourdough breads and sourdough crackers, Jane had also prepared various breads and cakes to eat during the day and gladly shared each recipe with us as we all scribbled madly in our notebooks. She also made thoroughly sure we all fully comprehended how to refresh our starter and tend to it, or rather not tend to it. Not capable of keeping up household tasks on a regular basis, I was excited to hear her sourdough method does not require laborious daily feeding of your starter. You simply need to remember to wake a portion of it up the day before you want to bake.

Since the course I have been madly baking with varied results. Or rather, myself and my flatmate love what I bake, but others who are more used to white fluffy tasteless loaves, I sense, need to get used to "proper" bread. Loaves are handed over to friends and family with statements like "you know this is better for you?" in the hope this will aid their appreciation. I am glad to report that by Christmas the naysayers had been converted at least in part by my mini rye loaves, which were great sliced thinly topped with smoked salmon and provided great fuel during present opening. Below my spelt and rye sourdough loaves.

Connect with Charlotte 

Instagram | Facebook | Visit her website

Baby shower sugartastic spread

Client: TBC
 A very good friend of mine asked me to throw a baby shower for her a few months ago. Kate and I made a joint effort out of it and it all looked so pretty we decided it would be a shame not to take a picture of the spread. The shoot would make a good story for a magazine and has not been used anywhere yet, so do get in touch if you know a good outlet for it. Also, myself and Kate are hugely inspired by our shoot and would love to cater another baby shower, so get in touch if you are interested. Here not only the shots, but also a list of Kate's sweet baby inspired creations.

Connect with Charlotte 

Instagram | Facebook | Visit her website

Chewy Banana Ginger Bread

After a few weeks of organic veggie and fruit boxes I had a glut of bananas. I pictured a banana and ginger bread and after some web research put this recipe together. When fresh the cake is beautifully chewy, but it also keeps really well and is delicious toasted with butter.

I actually tried a slightly different lighting style for this, I'm not 100% convinced but I think it would be good for glossy foods. More of which in my next post.

Photo © Charlotte Tolhurst

Courgette macaroons with lemon icing

These are another one of Kate's creations we shot at hers in Leamington Spa a couple of weeks ago. Leamington Spa is rather a pretty town with some gorgeous shops and cafes. A perfect town for a food and prop stylist to live, full of inspiration and car boot sales, at which Kate finds some of the lovely props in our pictures. If friends, family and work weren't all in London I'd move up there in a jiffy. The courgettes add colour and moisture to the macaroons and form part of your 5 a day of course. I'm a particular fan of the rice/edible paper used on their base (yes I know I have freekish food tastes!).

Gooey chocolate, beetroot and ginger cookies

These are absolutely delicious soft cookies which are best eaten warm straight out of the oven. The combination of chocolate, beetroot and bits of stem ginger are quite divine and a winning combination. I also like them because they aren't too sweet. They were devised by Kate Wesson, a food and prop stylist I frequently have the pleasure of working with. Kate like myself has a passion for healthy wholesome foods and together we can get quite excited about the latest gluten free bread mix or wotnot.

Photo © Charlotte Tolhurst

Welcome to my food and photography blog

 Yep it's a food blog, a photography blog and a food photography blog. But, hopefully, this one offers a slightly different angle than the others I have seen. It will focus on images of food photography, the work of a food photographer and this particular food photographer's passion for all food, especially healthy and nutritious foods.

 To explain further, being a food photographer means I get to shoot and taste lots of new recipes. I will be publishing some of these, but also i will write about my job as a food photographer. A bit of a behind the scenes peek. And that's not all, one of my main aims is to share my love of healthy nutritious food. I believe every meal counts, so why waste it by eating something with little goodness. I have no professional qualifications in this area, but have completed a course in nutrition, studied macrobiotics and read a lot on the subject. I think a mix of passion for nutrition and also a love for new tastes, flavours and recipes means I have an informed and adventurous take on the weird, exotic and superfoods out there.

 Here my first recipe for Sweet Potato muffins, which are unusual but delicious and can be eaten as a sweet or savoury depending on what you spread on them. As you can see there is no sugar in the recipe. I try to steer clear of refined sugar as much as possible. Instead I experiment by using honey, molasses, xylitol, stevia, agave or no sweetner at all.

Sweet potato muffins
Photo © Charlotte Tolhurst

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups diced (1" square), cooked, mashed and cooled sweet potato
2 1/2 cups oat bran
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
1 cup water
3 eggs, separated
2 tbsp melted butter

Method

Preheat oven to 400˚F/205˚C. Mix sweet potato, oat bran, baking powder, cinnamon and all spice. Make a well in the centre and add water, egg yolks and melted butter, mix. Beat egg whites until they are stiff and fold these into the mixture. Fill 12 greased muffin cups and bake for 20-25 minutes until when pricking the muffin the skewer comes out clean.

Connect with Charlotte 

Instagram | Facebook | Visit her website