Here at the Parrot Print headquarters, we’ve found ourselves swept up a little in Great British Bake Off fever over the past week. While our talents probably lie more in the eating arena than in the kitchen, we thought it was time to show a little love for cake on our "how to photograph cake" blog.

If you’re baking along with the BBC1 show and creating something worth putting on display, why not take a snap or two to record your achievements? They say that before we even taste the food we eat it with our eyes, so today we’re running through a few tips for photographing cake fabulous cake, helping you create customised canvas prints that look good enough to eat.

Timing is everything

With cake photography, timing is everything. If you’re baking a non-iced Bundt you might be tempted to snap it straight out of the oven, do so and you’ll be likely to capture a lot of steam too and a cake not quite at its best. The best time and place to photograph a cake is right after it’s been perfected. You don’t want to risk moving it about too much in case of accidents and you don’t want to allow the temperature to take its toll on your buttercream or drizzle. With this in mind, make sure you have all of the kit for your cake styling shoot at hand and plan ahead to take advantage of natural daylight.

Use natural light

Unless you want your cake to take on a slightly plastic appearance, it’s best to photograph in natural sunlight, perhaps near a kitchen window. Morning or sunset light is particularly sought after, so bear this in mind when the baking mood takes hold. If you have lots of light to help you, select a larger f-stop number to make the aperture smaller. For lower light select a slower shutter speed. You can also use a light-reflecting card, positioning it with the cake in the middle and the window on the far side to bounce the light back onto your cake.

Use props and settings

If you’ve learnt anything watching the Great British Bake Off it’s that presentation is important. Food styling is always fun buy cake, in particular, lends itself to creativity. Think about using cake stands and covers to create height, colour and light and mix and match with wall backings, tablecloths and other props like vintage crockery and cutlery.

If you want to make it all about the bake, snap your cakes in neat lines on a baking rack or close up with a nice chunky slice removed, so you can see any layering and interesting textures. If you’re a talented decorator and want to show off your perfect piping skills, bigger cakes look great photographed from a bird’s eye view. Think about where you’ll use the photos once they’re transferred onto your very own custom canvas print - if you’re planning to put canvas prints on the wall in your bakery, you might want to try and create a sense of occasion with your shoot.

With Afternoon Tea Week running across the UK from August 11^th-17^th it’s a great time for everyone to test out cake photography skills even if they’re not a master baker. Do you have a bake you’re particularly proud of? Why not upload a photo and let us turn it into a canvas print to put on display in your kitchen?

Why not check out our other food photography blog.