Lately I haven’t been in much of a mood to use my DSLR (instagram, on the other hand…). I’ve been feeling frustrated with my camera, the lighting in the apartment, and my annoyingly heavy lens. It can already get exhausting being in the kitchen all day, especially with this weather! But when you include setting up for photos it starts feeling like a chore. Not only that, but a lot of my cake and pastry ideas haven’t been panning out lately.
But enough complaining! Today I decided to just go with the flow and came up with a few different puff pastry tarts. My brother recently traveled through Europe and brought me two bags of flour from France. I went with a quick puff pastry to take advantage of its finer texture. There was some brown butter sitting in the fridge and decided to use that as well. And then I raided through the fridge to see what I could top them off with.
Clockwise from top left: peach, tomato + yogurt, pickle + goat cheese, potato + dill, fresh peach + fresh mozzarella.
The puff pastry came out very delicate and flake, while the brown butter added a nice nutty flavor that was a nice canvas for sweet and savory options. This is what I came up with:
Peach: One of my failed ideas earlier this week had to do with peaches. I’ve decided that it’s just plain wrong to cook them. Grill, okay, but bake? No! It breaks my heart knowing it’s delicate flavor and texture are going to waste, turning into mush. Same with this tart.
Tomato: You can’t go wrong with fresh garden tomatoes. I simply topped them off with pepper and maldon sea salt.
Pickle + goat cheese: I was skeptical, but Kate gave me that idea and I ran with it. Surprisingly delicious! Those are my lacto-fermented pickles, by the way. I might have to put a post together because I found it really exciting and fun to make.
Potato + dill: We got these cute little potatoes and I couldn’t resist using them. Added some leftover dill from my pickle experiment.
Fresh peach: Peaches really do shine when they’re uncooked. I baked the pastry with a bit of fresh mozzarella then topped them off with peaches right out of the oven.
By the way, what do you guys think of these photos? Shooting on a dark surface has really piqued my interest in photography again! Excited to see what else I can use this with. (Well, I do have this one that I like to call “Chiaroscuro Kitten“)
i love the dark background! and the potato & dill one sounds particularly delicious… yum yum.
I think that one was my favorite!
I feel the same way about my camera vs just shooting on my iphone and using instagram. It’s just so much easier in the heat of the summertime. Maybe I’ll turn back to my heavy camera in the autumn and winter? Also, ditto with the peaches, it’s hard to improve on the perfection of a ripe fresh peach – i hate to bake them into a pie.
The heat definitely hinders any desire to carry a huge camera around! Though I think simply switching to my 50mm lens will help a lot.
These photos are amazing!! I’ve been wanting to get some kind of dark surface to shoot on lately as I love that look. Also, I want to eat all of these. I LOVE puff pastry anything, brown butter anything, pickle anything.
This looks delicious! And I can’t wait to get an iPhone, so I can ditch the DSLR sometimes and use it to take my blog photos! And you have just made me seriously worried about what the kitchen lighting is going to be like in my new apartment…
I completely agree with you about the DSLR I get really frustrated. I know that it can take amazing photos but there’s so much heavy lifting and fiddling with dials involved. Your photos are gorgeous I love the dark background.
those pastries look soooo yum! I am very reluctant to cook peaches myself…but topped on a puff pastry the slices look so divine. I love the way you click these food snaps, light or dark, but dark definitely works – shows off the reds and pinks so well.
Love the pictures! I know what you mean about setting up for a shoot and pulling out my DSLR being a chore. Sometimes it even puts me off baking if I’m feeling lazy! But these photos look great, love the dark background, looks like it was worth the effort!
I think that the dark surface looks great, although I might be biased by hunger.
I love the fresh peaches.