Two shout outs are due at the top of this post.  One to MM, who spent Tuesday picking these berries at Butler's Orchard and then gifted me a bucketful . . . and another shout out to my mom, who clued me in to the fact that my baking powder was out of date . . . more on that in a second.

Why two photos, you ask?  Well, I want your opinion.  I took the two photos above using available window light and a piece of white foam as a reflector.  I'd like to know which one you prefer.  The top one's a little bit less exposed than the bottom one.  I like the top one as far as the exposure of the cream goes, because you can still see its texture . . . but the plate in the top photo seems underexposed and grayish.  In the bottom photo, the cream seems overexposed . . . you can no longer see the waves of texture . . . but I prefer the exposure of the plate . . . with the white plate actually looking white as it runs into the blog background on the bottom left of the frame.  So, which one do you prefer?  And, short of using artificial light, is there anything I could do to improve the exposure in these sorts of images?

The food . . . it's shortcake made from a recipe in the Williams-Sonoma book Essentials of Baking (thanks once again CH), together with the blackberries MM hooked me up with and some lavender chantilly cream.  I made lavender chantilly cream for the first time a little more than a week ago and love the stuff.  I whipped some up for MM Wednesday using the same approach/recipe I used earlier this month.  The problems with Wednesday night's creation numbered two.  First, the shortcake didn't rise enough . . . and when discussing this with my mother later that night she asked if my baking powder was out of date, which it was, and she clued me in to the fact that the out of date baking powder was likely the culprit.  The second problem Wednesday night was that the lavender flavor of the chantilly cream was overpowered by the tart berries.  So Thursday night I remade the shortcake with fresh baking powder.  Of course my mother was right.  Thursday night's batch of shortcake was great.  And Friday morning, I whipped up some more lavender chantilly cream, but using three tablespoons of lavender simply syrup per cup of cream instead of two, as I had in the earlier batches.  I snapped these photos Friday morning and then headed off to work, where I fed this to my coworkers as an afternoon snack.  The blackberry shortcake with lavender chantilly cream was very well received all around.

I'm really hooked on lavender chantilly cream, but I think it's time to move on to infusing other things with lavender.  Any suggestions?  Ice cream?  I've already got some booze suggestions from TH in cue.  Hit me up with some more ideas . . . and enjoy the rest of your weekend.