Clabber Girl Press Room
Putting it Together - 2006 Recipe Calendar

Making a recipe calendar is a large undertaking requiring the talents and efforts of many people in the organization. The process begins, as most projects do, with an idea – a vision of the ultimate goal. Clabber Girl’s aim for the 2006 Recipe Calendar was to produce a stylish but useable calendar with recipes that were familiar and accessible for the average cook – some challenging but none fussy.

Our first task was to find 12 suitable recipes to achieve this goal. They had to meet the “no fuss” preparation criteria but also had to have the potential to make a great photograph.

 

Jackie Payton and Nita Livvix (not pictured) of our test kitchen prepared, re-prepared, tweaked and re-re-prepared each recipe until we felt it would work well and look good. We also took into account the types of ingredients, cookware and techniques that would be familiar to the greatest number of people. That doesn’t mean we avoided using any specialty items. Some of the recipes call for Dutch-process cocoa, whole wheat flour and lemon zest. But all of the ingredients should be available at local supermarkets around the country. Once we had decided on our 12 recipes, and assigned each to an appropriate month, we began planning the look and layout of the calendar. We chose a vertical format this year and very simple but rich color schemes.

We really wanted the food to be the star. Test photos were taken of each recipe to get a feel for how the dishes would photograph and determine how the shots should be “styled” for the actual photo shoot.

The photos were taken over a period of two days in Clabber Girl company headquarters just outside our test kitchen. This allowed us to make the dishes fresh on the spot and make any adjustments necessary with our test kitchen personnel on hand. These experienced bakers, cooks & decorators were instrumental in making the photos possible. At right, Lisa Yowell decorates February's chocolate cake.

 

 

Our photographer, Harold Lee Miller of Indianapolis, lent his talent and expertise at setting up the shots. He was a great help in “stripping them down” to just what was essential to capture the essence of the dish and the mood of the photograph.

Denise Turner, our graphic designer, was also on hand to observe and advise, making sure the photographs fit physically and stylistically with the design she had created.

Once the photos were in hand many hours of design work were required to get them into the calendar layout, adjust colors and backgrounds, add in recipe text and “clean up” any flaws using digital photo-editing tools.

Then came the revisions! Each recipe was tweaked again – this time with a red pen. Space restrictions required some rewrites; omissions and mistakes had to be corrected! Luckily no re-shoots of photographs was necessary so the calendar was soon after approved for print.

Clabber Girl operates its own printing company, Hulman Print Services, who is printing the recipe calendar. The digital artwork is laid out in “printer’s pairs” so when folded and stapled the month come out under the appropriate recipe photo. A separate insert of recipe cards was also created to make it easy for filing the recipes for actual use without destroying the beauty of the calendar.

Printing plates are made from the digital files. The first press run of each plate is carefully checked for color correctness and clarity. Then the pages are printed, cut and bound. A final touch is a grommet punched through to make the calendar easy to hang on the wall.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this peek behind the scenes and that you enjoy the recipes and photos!