Some food looks so delicious, it pretty much sells itself. But what if you really need to push the boat out to make sure the product shifts? Enter the food styling magicians – they put the theatrics into food photography to make it look picture perfect. Discover the shortcuts that make food sell.

Quick caveat – lots of chefs, food stylists and food photographers go to huge lengths to make sure what they’re showing in photos looks great, tastes great and is absolutely authentic. We applaud them and their truthful efforts. For everyone else, we’re about to reveal all…

Mashed potato is quite the versatile ruse. To avoid melted milkshakes in the studio, some stylists substitute mash for the perfect result. And it's more likely to be of the instant, powdered variety for speed.

Most coffee looks great, smells great and tastes great. Trouble is, when photographed it tends to have an oily sheen which isn’t that appetising. The solution is to use soy sauce, brown sauce and a little gelatin to perk it up. Caffeine content is likely to be close to zero.

Whether it’s roasted turkey or chicken, a golden skin is what everyone aims for. In reality, for the perfect shot, the meat itself is rarely cooked through, with the skin slightly steamed rather than roasted and a little paint or varnish applied so it glistens. Canadian teak furniture stain is often a favourite.

Photographing food for a single billboard-worthy image can take a day, sometimes more. It takes time and food cools quickly. Hot food, such as soup or pies, is often photographed cold and the necessary swirls of steam are edited in later.

Ice cream is a nightmare to shoot in a studio – under lights it collapses in no time at all. Unless you’re shooting in a refrigerated unit (and this is a luxury that most don’t bother with), you’ll be relying on a mixture of corn syrup, powdered sugar and vegetable shortening to replace the ice cream. And yes, mashed potato is often used too.

Again that old problem of hot studios… Need a soft drink dripping with just the right amount of condensation? Or a cannot-be-ignored cold beer? Just blast a little spray deodorant on the glass and stick on small spots of glycerin to mimic those welcoming beads of refreshment. To add the fizz when needed, sprinkle in some antacid powder.

Whether it’s ice cream or frosted glasses, there’s no fighting the heat in the world of food photography. The simplest wheeze is to swap out the genuine ice cubes for fake clear plastic ones, and take as long as you need to shoot it.

Margaritas are the perfect way to get a party started but a bit more fickle to photograph. Often the usual lime-and-salt rim is replaced with a smear of Vaseline and salt instead to hold its shape during the shoot.

For closed tortillas that need bulking up, the wraps are stuffed with mashed potato, and then topped and tailed with chopped vegetables and perfectly-oozing melted cheese. Any avocado is tossed in plenty of fresh lemon or lime juice to retain the colour.

When a stylist needs the taco to stay open to show off its glorious contents, the food doesn’t always want to play ball. But pop in some little sponges, spoon the filling on top and the taco will sit pretty.

Taking a breakfast cereal shot? Milk makes the cereal go soggy on camera pretty quickly. The solution? Dilute some white (PVC) glue with water to give the appearance of milk and hey presto, that cereal still looks puffed to perfection.

Like dressing a stage or set, the more props thrown into the arrangement, the more it can draw the eye this way and that, making single ingredients or plain-looking food more interesting and evocative. Busy photographs with slate boards, cutlery, napkins, a glass, a basket of bread, condiments and more aim to slightly overwhelm the viewer.

Getting meat to look great in snaps isn’t as easy as you’d think – it can often appear dry and taut. Instead, food stylists take a blowtorch to a burger patty and finish it off with a little shoe polish, or more palate-pleasing Marmite (yeast extract spread), for depth of colour where needed. Not forgetting a slick of sunflower oil applied with a tiny paintbrush for an appealing sheen.

Burgers need a little more attention than just the meat. Getting one to stack up the way the photographer needs it to can be achieved by cardboard and toothpicks, strategically placed like hidden scaffolding. The oozing cheese is created by using a glue gun to melt the bits on show. Cheap and cheerful sliced cheese is much better than a fine, mature cheddar.

One of the most infamous tricks of the trade that is used to make a meal appear hot. A damp ball of cotton wool is microwaved then submerged within the food. Wet tampons have been known to retain the steam for longer. Hey presto, steam rising amid the dish.

Shine and sheen both have their place but sometimes food photography calls for a matte finish. A touch of hairspray or deodorant usually has the required effect.

Icing on cakes is often substituted for cream cheese or shaving foam since both hold their shape much better under studio lights. However, neither will do much for improving how it tastes.

Maple syrup is expensive stuff and rightly so. Speed up the process and save on the expense by dousing pancakes in engine oil instead – it looks close enough and is vastly cheaper to buy. Discover more of the world's most expensive ingredients.

Another trick to get a photo-worthy head of foam on a beer is by frothing the drink with liquid soap. It'll look thirst-quenching but you won't want to drink it in real life.

To achieve a crystallised rose, rose petals or grapes, you'd normally brush them with egg white then caster sugar and leave to dry. A quick way to achieve the same effect that won't go soggy under hot studio lights is to spray with hair lacquer then roll in sugar.

We all know that the gorgeous skin on roast meat begins to wrinkle as it cools down, whether it's a chicken or a turkey. Enter the hot glue gun, available from craft stores. Carefully fire the heat on the wrinkle and the skin will crisp up again, wrinkle-free, to perfection.

When chocolate cools down or you have taken it from the fridge, it tends to be dull and lacklustre. A speedy swoop over with a cook's blow torch will restore that mouth-watering gloss. Chefs use this technique too.

We all know a baked soufflé sinks within minutes of leaving the oven. So how do you keep that stylish rise for a little longer? Put iron nails or bolts into the base of the dish, add your soufflé mixture, then bake. The residual heat from the metal keeps it risen for just long enough for the photographer to achieve the perfect shot.

Why doesn't your cake look filled to perfection in even layers? The trick is to place a circle of corrugated card on each layer, just short of the edge of the cake. Then pipe in the filling using a piping bag. Use a tiny palette knife – like ones made for artists painting with oils – then slowly and carefully fill the gap.

You've never purchased a burger bun with all the sesame seeds in absolutely the right place so why do they always look perfect in photos? The stylist will select the best bun, possibly out of 30 examples. Then with a pair of chef's tweezers, they'll place additional seeds in the correct spot, dipping them in glue first to make sure they don't budge.

By the time photographers get the shot ready, that luscious melting butter is all gone and just sits in a puddle. It's why the pros put portions of butter in the freezer, then when everything is ready for the final shot, they put the butter in place and get that craft shop glue gun out again, and apply a little heat.

A glass of fizz can't sit around for too long while you are setting up your shot because the bubbles just sink and, well, fizzle out. But a little sprinkling of caster sugar will bring back the sparkle when you are ready to go.

Need those strawberries to be just the right shade of red, all over? Some food stylists carry red lipsticks in their kit to touch up the strawberries if they have little white patches on them.

How do you keep delicate salad leaves fresh and perky under hot lights? The answer is a very fine water mister, or several, kept in the fridge until the water is ice cold. Keep the salad leaves spritzed and they will keep their shape and structure for much longer.

A jelly from the fridge won't hold its shape long when it's out of a fridge and in a hot studio. So, triple the amount of gelatine used – leaf gelatine, not the powdered variety which can make it cloudy. The stylist will decant it from its mould, put it onto the preferred plate, then return it to the fridge. It will stay proud for so much longer. 

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Vibrant greens won't last long before they start to become dull and a greyish-green colour. Blanching vegetables is an easy solution. Greens are flash-boiled just until they appear cooked then plunged into iced water to stop cooking and retain the colour. Stylists will often spritz them with ice cold water or toss them in a little sunflower oil to keep their super green appearance. 

Read more: Everything you wanted to know about wine but were too afraid to ask

Last but not least, having an extensive range of food colourings to add a little zip, cover a small blemish or generally fool the eye is a great backup option.

Read more: 40 hacks to make your shop-bought food look homemade