Cocoa powder dusted Pavlovas with Blueberry compote.

Pavlovas are without doubt one of my favourite desserts! I’ve always found them quite daunting and intimidating to make, until yesterday I took a leap of faith and tried out a recipe from Donna Hay,that leap of faith and trust in a legend’s recipe truly paid off! I’m slowly getting into the festive season spirit, and what better way to start it off then with a festive pav! I added a little something extra(as always) I had a punnet of Blueberries sitting on my fridge shelf about to go off, to accompany and top the Pavlovas I made a quick blueberry compote using castor sugar to equal parts of water(a few tablespoons until it just about covers the blueberries)

Okay, time to let the cat out of the bag…remember that piece of news I’ve been teasing you all about? So, last week with the release of the December issue of the Food&Home Magazine, I was chosen and featured in this issue as their ‘Blogger of the month’! Exciting right?! 🙂 I feel incredibly honoured and so grateful to be chosen by Food&Home Magazine, check out my Instagram feed for the photo of the feature. If you’re in South Africa head out to get your copy of the issue, not only to read the feature, but there are so many gift ideas and amazing recipes for entertaining this festive season!

I shot this series of photos this morning and took me a while to shoot and edit thereafter, feeling like a train hit me, down with the common cold. So, to cheer myself up, I experimented with different backgrounds, aperture settings and light exposure, yes these are things that cheer me up! The above photo with blue backdrop, I crinkled up some tissue paper and painted it with water based paint to get that effect. I can never get enough of backdrops and backgrounds, I’ve recently noticed that there are online stores in the United Kingdom and Russia that make and sell backdrops for food photography. There are some incredibly beautiful backdrops at both stores, all of which are rather expensive if you have to include shipping costs too! I would love to make my own backdrops using stone and wood, but have no idea where to start…