All I always remember from that commercial-food-prep stuff was that they use Elmer's glue as milk in closeup shots of cereal on a spoon (so that the flakes don't get soggy). I always thought that was absolutely fascinating (not to mention incredibly smart).
Arianna, oooh, I forgot about that! But I am sure it was on that same show! I put a book on my paperbackswap wish list about photographing food, i hope it has more tricks like that!
I *think* though, they can only do that if the product is secondary. I mean, they can't replace ben and jerry's ice cream with fake ice cream if they are doing the photo shoot FOR ben and jerry's, but if they were selling Betty Crocker cake, they could use fake ice cream in the image. Does this make sense?
March 5, 2008 at 1:28 PM
sara the soda jerk said...
We've used this in our photo studio. John, who makes it, suggests just a TINY bit of food coloring - for strawberry, for instance - a drop or 2 per batch added with the karo syrup. A drip of Yellow will give the look of French or NY Vanilla ( originally colored with egg yolks ). I came to your blog because we needed to fake some ice cream for a play..."Madeline's Christmas". John also said that packing it into the scoop and not allowing the swing bar on the scoop to release it too soon will give that good rumpled look of a good hard ice cream.
December 2, 2009 at 2:06 PM
So I have been drawing lot of sweets lately and I really wanted to draw ice cream. My couple of attempts at drawing ice cream bars were frustrating and quite frankly the images were pretty boring. (There is very little texture to ice cream bars and pudding pops.) What I wanted was the fantastic airy texture of a scoop of ice cream.
I have been looking online for models (kind of pricey) and am hoping Jenni B of Jenni B Originals will take me up on her suggestion for soft serve fake food, but in the meantime, it finally hit me! I remember being a kid and watching a special on photo secrets. The two that stuck with me? Duct taping and saran wrapping female models (you gotta love modeling) and making fake ice cream. Since I had no models to duct tape, I realized my future was in fake ice cream. I searched online and finally found some good recipes for fake ice cream...the one I used is basically a very very dense frosting, but the results are pretty good. Here's the thing that kind of makes me wonder though -- the recipes for fake ice cream came from the Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture (not the first place I would look for something like this)...
Below is the recipe (from the Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture site) that I found made some great looking (and not horrible tasting -- I had to test!) fake ice cream:
[Image]Artificial Hard-pack Ice Cream or Frozen Yogurt May be doubled. (I actually ended up halving it so I wouldn't have to use all of our powdered sugar. I got about 2 cups, but it was harder to scoop from such a small amount.)
1/3 to 1/2 cup light (Karo) corn syrup 1/3 to 1/2 cup white solid shortening (Crisco) 1 lb. (453 g) powdered sugar
In standing mixer (Kitchen Aid) or food processor, blend corn syrup and shortening until smooth. Gradually beat in powdered sugar until stiff dough forms (this is basically a stiff frosting). Knead in remaining sugar (as needed to reach desired consistency) on a cleansurface. Store in heavy resealable plastic bag; keeps well in refrigerator. Freeze for longer storage.
You can go here for my drawing of the fake ice cream. As it was my first time making fake ice cream, it was also my first time drawing fake ice cream, so I am not too practiced...
"Counterfeit Ice Cream"
5 Comments -
Oh, I am not sure how I feel about this fake ice cream...the ingredients look...well...sweet...but I suppose you can't know until you try, right!
March 4, 2008 at 11:08 AM
Cakespy, I wouldn't suggest mass consumption...but I was curious to what it tasted like, sooo I tasted a crumb -- basically like dense frosting.
From now on though, I think I will just use it as a prop, not as dinner! ;)
March 4, 2008 at 2:21 PM
All I always remember from that commercial-food-prep stuff was that they use Elmer's glue as milk in closeup shots of cereal on a spoon (so that the flakes don't get soggy). I always thought that was absolutely fascinating (not to mention incredibly smart).
March 5, 2008 at 10:45 AM
Arianna, oooh, I forgot about that! But I am sure it was on that same show! I put a book on my paperbackswap wish list about photographing food, i hope it has more tricks like that!
I *think* though, they can only do that if the product is secondary. I mean, they can't replace ben and jerry's ice cream with fake ice cream if they are doing the photo shoot FOR ben and jerry's, but if they were selling Betty Crocker cake, they could use fake ice cream in the image. Does this make sense?
March 5, 2008 at 1:28 PM
We've used this in our photo studio. John, who makes it, suggests just a TINY bit of food coloring - for strawberry, for instance - a drop or 2 per batch added with the karo syrup. A drip of Yellow will give the look of French or NY Vanilla ( originally colored with egg yolks ). I came to your blog because we needed to fake some ice cream for a play..."Madeline's Christmas". John also said that packing it into the scoop and not allowing the swing bar on the scoop to release it too soon will give that good rumpled look of a good hard ice cream.
December 2, 2009 at 2:06 PM