Orange and Apricot Tea Loaf

My wife Anne tried a new recipe today from the April 2012  ‘Good Housekeeping’ magazine. It looked good, tasted excellent and didn’t last long. I thought it deserved a couple of photo’s. It contains mixed peel and finely chopped apricots, chopped walnuts  and the zest of one large orange. The cake is glazed with marmalade and runny honey. (Click on pictures for larger versions).

Orange and Apricot Tea Loaf with Marmalade and Honey Glaze

A slice of Orange and Apricot Tea Loaf

Ten super slices from one loaf

Hot Cross Buns

My wife Anne baked these delicious sweetly spiced sticky-glazed Hot Cross Buns. A traditional treat at Easter time.

German Sourdough Friendship Cake

German sourdough friendship cake on the plate

My wife was given a sourdough mixture by a friendly neighbour. It spent ten days on the worktop fermenting and being fed regularly with sugar flour and milk. With it being a freiendship cake our final fermented  dough was then split into four portions and three portions were given to friends. Then the portion that we kept was at last ready to have the other ingredients added which were eggs, apple, sugar, flour, salt, oil, cinnamon, baking powder, walnuts and raisins. It was then baked for an hour in the oven with the results shown in the photo’s.  It has quite a unique flavour and taste and is light, moist and crumbly. It is ideal by itself with a pot of tea or coffee but is also well suited to being served warm with ice cream as a desert.

German Sourdough Cake Ready For Serving

German sourdough friendship cake taken from the baking tin in strips

German sourdough friendship cake in the baking tin straight from the oven looking golden brown and smelling delicious

Spinach, penne and cheese spoufflé

Spinach, penne and cheese spoufflé - no it's not spelt wrong!

No I haven’t spelt soufflé wrong, it really is called spoufflé ! My wife was recently given a copy of Hugh  Feanley-Whittingstall’s book called ‘River Cottage Veg Every Day!’ for her birthday and this was the first recipe that she tried. You can get the book here. She used low-fat cheese but otherwise it was  exactly as the recipe said. It produced a fantastic ‘one-pot’ meal which has left us keen to try out some of the many other mouth-watering recipes in the lovely book.

Vegetarian Food – Flat Bread, Bruschetta and Waffles

I spent another enjoyable few hours at the Dandelion and Burdock vegetarian restaurant in Sowerby Bridge adding a few more shots to the collection for David Wilson’s new cookery book. Here are a few of the photo’s, a few more preparation shots than usual. You can see more about Martin’s food photography here Food Photography by Martin Stainsby or click the ‘Food’ label in the right hand column.

The Chef's Clock

Spinach for Spinach Flat Bread

Spinach being Cut

Spinach Flat Bread mixture in the mixer

Spinach Flat Breads on the Hot Plate

Eggplant Bruschetta (1)

Eggplant Bruschetta (2)

Vegetarian Take-Away (Meatless Loaf with Sweet Potato Mash, Red Onion Gravy, Pepper and Grean Beans

Blueberry Waffles

Blueberry Waffles – Food Photography

martin stainsby photography – food photography in Halifax West Yorkshire  A sequence of  photos as David Wilson prepares Blueberry Waffles at the Dandelion and Burdock restaurant in Sowerby Bridge. You can see more of my food photography either here here  Food Photography by Martin Stainsby , or by clicking the Food label in the right hand column.

Vegetable & Fruit Photographs – Colours and Details

A few food photographs with lots of colour and / or details. Taking when passing the time when stuck indoors during bad weather.

Peppers & Tomatoes

Cherry Tomatoes (1)

Close-Up of Figs when making Fig Chutney

Close-up shot of Garlic Bulb (1)

Close-up shot of Garlic Bulb (2)

Jam Making (1)

Jam Making Close-Up (2)

A Simple Flash Set-Up for Food Photography

I sometimes post a few pictures on this blog from  food photography shoots but this time I thought I would show a relatively simple set-up that I used for a couple of the photo’s from yesterday’s shoot, with a few of the photos shown below. I often use natural light when the light is fairly constant but in this case it wasn’t, so I decided to work entirely with  flash for some of the shots.  This is not my typical flash set-up, I would usually use a softbox or shoot-through umbrella but this set-up proved interesting. More food photo’s can be seen here Food Photography Gallery

The set-up for the picture shown below

This particular set-up consists several elements:

1)  A Canon full-frame DSLR with a 70-200mm f2.8 lens, mounted on a tripod

2)  There is a 9ft cable connecting the camera to the flash gun on the left which is mounted on a lighting stand. The flash is a Canon 580 EX Mk II flashgun and with the cable I have full ETTL metering and control from the camera. The flash has a honeycomb grid attached to it to give a small direct pool of light. When firing the camera  a 1 stop  diffuser was hand-held in front of the grid just to diffuse the light a bit.

3)  There is a silver/white reflector mounted on a light stand in front of the  window. This is acting as a shade to stop the variable and uncontrollable light from the window affecting the exposure. The white side of the reflector is facing the table and bouncing light back onto the dish.

4)  A second Canon 580 EX Mk II flashgun is mounted on an arm attached to the bracket that is holding the reflector. This flash is triggered automatically by the first ‘master flash’  and it is bouncing a soft pool of light off the white reflector and back onto the plate. The amount of light from this ‘slave flash’ is set by a control on the first, ‘master flash’.

5)  There is a white cable running from the camera body to an Apple MacBook Pro laptop that is just out of the picture on an adjacent table, for tethered shooting. The camera can be fired from the computer or by itself but in either case the picture is immediately downloaded and displayed. This means that the photo can be quickly checked and the effect of any changes to the arrangement, lighting, exposure, focus etc. can be seen.

This photo of chocolate pâté with ginger biscuits was taken with the set-up shown above. I was aiming for a very shallow depth of field with nice details in the biscuits and soft shadows.

This photo of Beetroot Bread with White Bean Roast Garlic Dip was also taken with the same set-up. Slight changes to flash intensity and camera settings give a much more contrasty look to the picture with a lot more depth of field giving fine detail  in the bread and the basket.

This photo of Vegetarian Sushi with Soy Sauce, Pickled Ginger and Wasabi was taken using only the one flash on the left with the honey comb grid fitted. This was set-up like this to give it some shadow and a feeling of depth whilst keeping the background very dark. martin stainsby photography –  food photography  in Halifax, Huddersfield, Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield, North Yorkshire and  West Yorkshire If you would like  find out more about my food photography visit  martin stainsby food photography or contact me here Contact Page If you would like to see more of my work visit Martins Gallery

Food Photography in February 2011

martin stainsby photography – food photography in Halifax West Yorkshire  A few photos from a shoot in February at the Dandelion and Burdock restaurant in Sowerby Bridge. More info about my food photography can be see here  Food Photography by Martin Stainsby 

martin stainsby photography –  food photography  in Halifax, Huddersfield, Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield, North Yorkshire and  West Yorkshire 
If you would like  find out more about my photography business visit 

martin stainsby photography or contact me here Contact Page

If you would like to see more of my work visit

Martins Gallery

Vegetarian Food Photography in West Yorkshire

martin stainsby photography – commercial photographer in Yorkshire 
I spent an enjoyable day at the Dandelion and Burdock vegetarian restaurant in Sowerby Bridge adding a few more shots to the collection for David Wilson’s new cookery book and sampling the delights! This a few of the photo’s. You can see more about Martin’s food photography here Food Photography by Martin Stainsby

Head Chef

Chocolate and Orange Cheescake

Carrot and Pecan Cake

4 Bean Soup with Sundried Tomato Bread

Bubble and Sqeuak with Chive Sour Cream

Sweet Potato Pie with Minted Marrow Fat Peas

Carrots on Roasting Tray

If you would like  find out more about my photography business visit 

martin stainsby photography or contact me here Contact Page