Blueberry Picking Styled Photoshoot

This is the fourth styled shoot that my friend Storm and I have worked together on. We both have had such much fun organising and brainstorming ideas before each shoot, as well as scouting out locations. We started styling shoots earlier this year as a way of growing our creativity, and being productive here in South Korea. I take the photographs, hair and makeup and Storm handles the clothing and general styling of the model and our location. 

So far we have done a flower crown shoot, a late afternoon picnic beach shoot, and a Korean temple.

We hope you enjoy these photographs from a trip to a blueberry farm near the small town of Jeongeup, South Korea. A huge thank you to our beautiful model Helen, a Southern Gal from the US who was such a delight to work with. 

x

Blueberry Chocolate Banana Bread {recipe}

After the success of my last cranberry chocolate chip banana bread recipe (and the fact that I had 5 bananas that were so black and nasty, they were about the walk themselves outside) I adapted the recipe to include some blueberries. It's blueberry season here in Korea, and boy oh boy did those blueberries not jus make this my best banana bread yet! 

I love that this recipe is so versatile. You can change up the flour (I substituted some buck wheat flour in this mixture to reduce the carb count...hubby is still not sure about me trying to make sweet treats healthy so I am going about it slowly so hopefully he doesn't notice). You can also use any other fruit you would prefer instead of the blueberries. Cranberries have worked well, apple would be good too. And you can add in any extras that yo fancy too, like almonds, walnuts or cinnamon.

PREP: 5 MINS COOKING TIME: 30MINS - 1 HOUR 

-it again took a VERY long time for my bread to cook, but that is because I have a little oven that gets hot very quickly and tends to burn things on the top without cooking through. I would put the timer on for 20 minutes and then check your bread every 5 minutes after that. You will be able to see whats going on in your oven, and you also know if you have a decent 'will-cook-through-without-burning' oven. You want the bread to be moist, but cooked. Dry banana bread is horrid. So keep testing with a sharp knife. If it pulls away clean, your bread is ready. If it comes away with even a little gooey dough on the knife, leave it in for a few more minutes.

INGREDIENTS

-3/4 ripe bananas, smashed (my banana were black black black, had been frozen and then thawed and worked absolutely perfectly! No need to freeze yours, mine were just sitting in the freezer until I could find a use for them).

-1/3 cup coconut oil (you can use butter if you don't have coconut oil)

-1/2 cup brown sugar sugar 

-1 egg, beaten

-1 teaspoon vanilla

-1 teaspoon baking soda

-pinch of salt

-1 1/2 cups all purpose flour (I used 1 cup of regular cake flour and half a cup of buckwheat flour to make it a tiny bit less full of carbs)

-handful of blueberries

-handful (and a half!) of chocolate chips/any chocolate

METHOD

No need for a mixer, a bowl and wooden spoon are more than adequate. 

Preheat your oven to 180C. 

With a wooden spoon, mix your coconut oil into the mashed banana. Add the sugar, egg and vanilla. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, and sprinkle in the chocolate chips and cranberries (and anything else you feel like adding...flaked almonds & cinnamon are good extras). 

Pour the mixture into a buttered (I used coconut oil again) loaf pan.

Bake for 1 hour, placing on a rack to cool.

Let me know if you try this at home, you can tag me on Instagram (@roxypearce) or on Facebook :)