peach dumplings with vanilla sauce | smitten kitchen

I'm not much of a cook as in I tend to avoid cooking whenever possible and usually stick making the same things over and over. I do, however, enjoy baking - well, except for the cleaning up afterwards part. I approach baking as I do pretty much any crafty endeavor - I dive right in and make a huge mess in the process. Another thing I seem to like is taking photos of food...I find it relaxing when compared to the somewhat stressful experience of photographing the kiddo. I get to take my time and make thoughtful decisions when it comes to snapping photos of food.

For this baking/photography experiment, I made Smitten Kitchen's Peach Dumplings with Vanilla Sauce. Since I made no changes to the recipe I have no adaptation to share...you'll just have to go get the cookbook! It's so worth it. I've tried four desserts from the book so far and they were all delicious. 

As far as the photo set up goes, I kept things simple since I don't have any cool props yet. I ventured over to our local thrift shop in hopes of finding some food photography props but that mission was a bust. Apparently I don't live in an area that is conducive to great thrift shopping. I'll just have to stick to online shopping.

I am really drawn to the darker, moodier photos like these and these. The first two photos in this post were shot in the kiddo's room using her Ikea chalkboard easel underneath the peaches and black foam core board as the backdrop. The rest of the photos were shot in my kitchen on the counter top with black foam core board as the backdrop as well.  I managed to get the dumplings baked and out of the oven just as the sun was setting and was able to get just a few "finished product" images. It was so hard not to just dive right in with my fork....the smell was heavenly!