The Cheater's Guide to the Perfect Slice

Of cheesecake that is...

photo by Renee Anjanette

When I first started food styling I sweated over every slice of cake.  It sounds simple, right?  What's the big deal?   Just bake a cake, frost it, cut out a slice and slap it on a plate.   Not so fast, my little chickadees.  There are a million things that can go wrong with that slice.  Your cut might be far from perpendicular, your layers might smash together and ooze filling everywhere, the interior of your cake might be riddled with air bubbles.  These things sound like small problems, but they can turn into fatal flaws under the unforgiving eye of the camera.   If you think regular cake slices are, ahem, a piece of cake, then try wrapping your brain around a crack-prone, wobbly soft cheesecake.  Here are a few tips on styling the perfect slice of cheesecake:

1.  Always wrap the bottom of the spring form in a layer of foil that hangs over the outer ring.   Wrap the excess foil up and around the outer ring.  This layer of foil allows you to easily remove your finished cheesecake from the bottom of the pan once it's baked.  

2.  Add one or two packets of dissolved gelatin to your cheesecake filling before you bake it.  Make sure the gelatin is fully dissolved and mix it thoroughly into the liquid filling.  

3.  Wrap the entire exterior of the spring form in 3 or four layers of foil.  This is to prevent water from seeping in while baking (you'll see what I mean in step four).  

4.  If you don't want your cheesecake to crack, set the spring form in a deep-ish baking tray on the lowest rack of the oven.  Immediately fill the tray with boiling hot water.  Bake for the amount of time specified in the recipe.  

5.  Allow the cheesecake to cool slowly (you may have to leave it in the oven with the door closed for an hour or more).  Once it has come to room temp, you're going to want to chill it in the fridge for a few hours before you attempt a slice.  Sometimes I rush this step by popping it in the freezer, but a cheese cake is something you definitely want to make on your prep day!!  

6.  It is helpful to find the center of your cake and compose your slice with bamboo skewers before you make the actual cut.  Heat up your knife blade in a glass of hot water and slice firmly and confidently   Always clean your blade before attempting the second cut.  You may have to cut out excessive amounts of cake on either side of your hero slice in order to remove it from the round undamaged.  

Happy Styling!

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Pretty Winter Cookies

photo generously provided by Charles Schiller

My favorite thing to style is the mighty baked good.  The aesthetics of baked goods speak to me in a nostalgic way that no other food can touch.  Probably has something to do with the fact that I am a hard core sugar addict and would main line apple pie if I could figure out how to get it in the damn needle.  For these polar cut out cookies I used extremely pale blue, green, purple and pink royal icing with sanding sugar over the piped lines to add to the icy mood.  This type of pristine sugar cookie takes hours and hours to make perfectly and is one of the great lies of food styling.  I don't know many home cooks who have the time, patience or determination to attempt such detailed edibles only to watch them get snarfed down in five seconds flat.  But they are fun to make if you have 12 hours to kill and are able to slip into a piping bag zen trance.  Very relaxing.

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Debbie Lee conquers the mighty SQUID!

One of the best things about living in Los Angeles is the incredible smoosh of just about every culture on earth, side by side, right here in my home town.  That means I can start my day eating jalebi in Artesia, make a quick stop in Glendale for a kabob and end up in Koreatown up to my eyelids in SQUID.  wait...squid?  Yes squid.   Last week I had the honor of working with the hilarious and oh-so-talented Debbie Lee. 

What an education!!!!  On my prep day Debbie sent me to the fab Koreatown Galleria where I got a crash course in all food-stuff Korean.  The spice aisle alone blew my mind, and then I got to the fish section.  Wooooo Hooooooooooo!  I am not particularly squeamish (let's put it this way; if the toilet ever overflows in our house I am the one who cleans it up while my hubby cowers in the corner, whimpering) and I am by no means a vegetarian, but I do feel a pang of what.....guilt?  Disgust?  Let's just call it "discomfort" at the prospect of cutting off an animal's head and ripping it's guts out with my bare hands.  In the fish section of the Koreantown Galleria there are MANY opportunities to get in touch with your hunter/gatherer roots.  It is WHOLE food in the strongest sense of the word.  Imagine my hesitation when instructed to purchase six whole squid to "clean, and cut into rings and tentacles." 

Luckily, on the shoot day, Debbie was on hand to instruct me in the finer points of squid butchery.  It seems it helps not to name the little darlings, it makes it easier when it's time to separate Sir Squidlington the Third's head from his wee body.  

Tentacles are off!!  All the parts neatly trimmed and ready for the frying pan.

Sir Squidlington the Third is really a thing of beauty, especially in his final incarnation:

Debbie Lee's Spicy Stir-fried Squid

Sorry folks you'll have to wait for the book to come out for this recipe.  Might I just add that working with Debbie Lee was a tasty food fantasy.  Every dish yummier than the last.  I'm going to have to become an Ahn-Joo food truck stalker! 

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