So, if you're going to use natural window light to illuminate your subject, you're going to want to do a few very inexpensive things.
1) Get yourself some tracing paper to place between the window and the subject. This will act as a large diffusor, making the light and shadows softer and more pleasing.
2) Get yourself a large piece of white foam core. Cut the large sheet of foam core into two pieces using an Exacto knife (or razor blade or some such) and tape the two halves together with clear tape so that you can set it on the table in a "V" formation. You place this "V" card at the opposite end of where the natural light is coming in from the window to "bounce" light back into the food. This is most effective for tall foods, such as the cake posted at the top of the page.
3) You'll need to be sensitive to the time of day/quality of the daylight coming in through the window. This will affect the color temperature of the image. Cloudy/overcast days can throw a different color temperature than sunny days during the middle of the afternoon.
4) You'll want to minimize any other lighting falling on your subject (such as interior room lights, televisions, or monitors). If you don't, you can actually get multiple color casts on different parts of your image (blue-ish coming from the window and yellow-ish coming from incandescent interior lights).
5) Buy yourself a "gray card" from a photography store (or online from someplace like Amazon / B&H Photo / Adorama). This will make setting your camera's custom white balance easier (if your camera supports that feature), or if your camera doesn't support custom white balance, you can take two exposures of the food in question, the first with the gray card placed in front of the food and the second without the gray card. Once in your photo editor of choice, you can set the white balance point using the first image and then copy those settings to your second image.
