Athena Plichta Photography

(photo on left: Woman's Day)

i had baked cupcakes (with no intention of shooting them at first, believe it or not) and thought i'd copy the current woman's day magazine cover. when i first saw it at the store, it fooled me -- i thought it was real corn! i used jelly belly jelly beans (lemon, buttered popcorn -- yechh, and coconut) for the kernels, a lemon starburst as a pat of butter, sugar as salt, and real pepper. i couldn't locate the small corn used on the magazine cover so i used a chopstick with a grilled tip (we ran out of skewers one day) and speared it through the cupcakes. i give a lot of props to food stylists whose job it is to make foods camera-ready and photogenic -- it's tough, especially when your frosting is fast melting and, in my case, the kids are asking to eat the jelly beans already.