Food Stylist Shows How to Build the Perfect Sandwich | Food Stylist vs Club Sandwich | Well Done

 (upbeat music) - I'm a food stylist. I make food look beautiful and photo ready for cookbooks, magazines, and ads. Everybody knows what a classic club sandwich looks like. But I'm gonna show you how I make it look like this. To me a club sandwich is three pieces of bread, ham, turkey, cheese, mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato, bacon.

So first things first, you can't start building a sandwich without having your hero bread.

I picked out this particular loaf of bread. It's a whole baked white loaf, unsliced. What I would like to do is slice it myself so I get exactly the thickness of bread slices that I want for my sandwich. Because I'm building a three layer sandwich I want all my bread to be as evenly shaped as possible.

Getting all the pieces of bread from the center of the loaf is really gonna help me with that. These are really nice pieces. So I have five total. I think that's a good place to start.

They're not all exactly even, but that's okay too.

'Cause I think it gives it character to the sandwich when it's not absolutely perfect. I've got my bread sliced, and now we're gonna move on to slicing the tomatoes for the sandwich. Thank goodness it's summer because these tomatoes are gonna be bright red and beautiful, which is exactly what we want to build a beautiful hero sandwich. I'm gonna use a bread knife to slice my tomato. The serrated edge of a bread knife really helps get a clean slice of a tomato.

As I'm slicing these tomatoes, I'm looking for about a quarter inch thickness on the tomato slice.

That way it will stand out inside of the sandwich, alongside all of the other components. You'll be able to see the bright red skin really nicely. So I'm gonna get started toasting the bread and actually use one of the pieces of bread that I rejected just to make sure that I get the color exactly where I want it to. I'm adding olive oil to my skillet.

It's got a really nice golden color, which acts as if it's butter. (sizzling) You really can't even tell the difference. But I trust my olive oil a little bit more not to burn and get brown like butter does. And this induction skillet actually works really fast so you have to be on top of it. That didn't take very long.

I'm happy with the way this turned out so now I'm gonna do my beauty slices of bread.

Okay, I am trying to get the right temperature on the induction skillet. It got a little hot and it's toasting my bread very quickly. It's just a little too dark for me. You could obviously toast bread in a toaster.

However, trying to achieve like that crispy, griddled bread look, you really can't achieve that in the toaster. So now I'm gonna start building our club sandwich. A traditional club sandwich has three pieces of bread. I'm gonna pick out which piece of bread I would like to be on top. That piece of bread is going to be the prettiest piece of bread.

I think I'm gonna go with this guy. It has a really beautiful golden color, the toasting and the browning is really nice, it stands out just enough. This piece got a little too dark. So this piece is gonna be on the bottom. So traditionally a club sandwich is either cut into half or into quarters.

Instead of building a whole sandwich and then slicing it, I'm gonna go ahead and cut my bread and build each piece separately. If I was to build the whole sandwich and then slice it, everything would kinda get mashed together, and you wouldn't be able to see each layer individually, and things would look really messy. So now I have a half of a sandwich and two quarter pieces. I'm ready to build my sandwich.

And in order for me to do that, I'm gonna have to get at a better angle so I can see each layer clearly.

I'm actually just gonna sit down and work on it at eye level. The first thing I'm gonna put down is our mayonnaise. I want that to be clearly visible on the base of the bread. The next thing I'm gonna put on is a slice of lettuce. So what this is gonna do is actually give a color separation before I add my meat and cheese onto the sandwich.

This green leaf lettuce has a really beautiful color and a really nice texture.

And I just spritzed it with water so it's really nice and like crisp. I'm placing the lettuce so that the leaves hang over the edge of the bread slice a little bit. Having those little pieces hanging over the edge really gives it visual interest. This is whipped cream cheese.

Aka the glue that is gonna hold our sandwich together. So I have a couple pieces of lettuce that are sticking up and I know they'll probably lay down at some point, but I wanna go ahead and make sure that they are exactly where I want them to be.

So I'm just gonna take a little bit of cream cheese and put it underneath the lettuce, and then press it down. So now I'm gonna start working with the deli meat. I'm folding the ham to give it some texture and fullness onto the sandwich.

Building a sandwich can take a while. And it's also gonna sit on set for a long time too. So I picked out deli meat that had been smoked. The preservatives in that deli meat help the color stay looking fresh. Okay, I have my lovely layered deli meat for the club sandwich.

Now I'm gonna add my cheese. I have Swiss and cheddar cheese that I specifically picked out for the color and the texture. I'm gonna take each slice of cheese and cut it to fit onto the sandwich.

So for the half sandwich I'm cutting this cheese in half and then layering it onto the sandwich. And then for the quarters, slicing the cheese into quarters.

Before I add my next layer of bread onto the sandwich, you can see at the very backside of the sandwich that the toppings are starting to kind of slope down a little bit. There's just not enough support. So I'm gonna take a toothpick and just gently place it in. And then press down on top so that the pieces that are on top of the toothpick stick down into it. Like a facelift for your sandwich.

So I'm moving on to the next layer of the sandwich, which is our bread. I'm gonna add cream cheese so it sticks to the bottom half of the sandwich. I'm gonna add a couple toothpicks into the half sandwich so that I don't have to worry about it falling apart. Now we're gonna add the bacon. I cooked this bacon specifically to give it a wavy look.

If you've watched my video on how to make an IHOP breakfast, you'll see how I got the wavy look on the bacon. Now I'm moving on to my sliced tomato. You'll be able to see that bright red skin really nicely. Time for the final topping, my last slice of bread. I'm gonna spread mayonnaise on that, and top it with a piece of lettuce.

My sandwich is fully built. The last thing I need to do before we switch to our beauty set up is add a few more toothpicks to give the sandwich the additional support it needs. This is a big sandwich and I don't want it to fall apart at all. Since our sandwich is taller, it's gotten heavier. I'm gonna add a little bit more support to the back to help it stay upright and nothing falls backwards.

I have my club sandwich completely built. And it looks amazing. It's got clear vibrant layers. And now we're ready to transfer it to our photo setup and give it its grand debut. The sandwich is ready, and everything looks great.

We've got it plated with potato chips and a pickle spear. And it's in its own little environment. We've changed out the surface. We've added some props. And this sandwich is photo ready.

It really is good enough to eat. Well maybe after I take all the toothpicks out. If you guys wanna see more food stylist tips and tricks be sure to follow Well Done Food on Facebook and YouTube. And comment below, let me know what you wanna see me food style next. (upbeat music).