Have you seen those amazing edible fruit displays you can order as a gift? They’re awesome, particularly the ones that involve chocolate. Anything with chocolate makes it all the more spectacular. Well, the fruit display I made didn’t have chocolate for one reason; I’m extremely health conscious and couldn’t bear the thought of….oh, who am I kidding. I can’t lie. I burnt the chocolate. I did. It was the true definition of a “travesty.” Tears were shed and I needed to have someone fan me with an extravagant fan. A bit dramatic? Perhaps. Well, I marched on despite the loss of the chocolate I intended to use for the strawberries and although the beauty of the arrangement didn’t quite match that of the pictures in the magazines, it still came out successful.
I first was directed to peel a cantaloupe and a honeydew melon. Easy. Then I was given what I like to call a “wavy cutter thingy” since I didn’t have the technical name at the time and totally forgot to ask what it was. Maybe you’ve seen one in Target or another store where you can buy kitchen equipment.
Okay, so now the melon is prepared and it’s onto the pineapple. Sweet, sweet pineapple. I peeled the pineapple and sliced the circles approximately 3/4″, but feel free to cut them however big or small you’d like. I’d probably cut them a little thicker next time. I had a flower shaped tool to make the flower shapes.
I decided not to cut out the core for a few reasons. 1) I couldn’t get the core out without it looking like a square…lame; 2) I needed to poke the stick into something for the arrangement. Those were good enough reasons to keep the core of the pineapple.
Next step was to prep the strawberries, which only required a wash and hull. I wanted to leave as much of the red berry intact so I just used a paring knife to remove the green stem and inner white part that stuck to it. Also, grapes were to be used so I had those out ready for assembly. I used a clear square vase as the container and inserted a chunk of cabbage as the base to stick the fruit in. I also shredded cabbage and placed it around the vase to make it not look so, so….cabbagey. Is that a word? I was going for a natural look.
Onto the assembly! I used plastic skewers and being this was the first time I’ve even attempted anything like this, I can’t say if they worked the best or the worst. I think they worked well, but maybe you know of a much better way of arranging the fruit. I started to assemble from the outside in…bad idea. Work from the inside out. I thought I was so smart until about halfway through and thought, “Hmm, this is getting hard!” Yep, inside out was the way to go so I started over.
Make sure to use lots of grapes to poke onto the sticks to cover up the white plastic stick. I popped a couple on the stick with strawberries and the pineapple, but you can be as creative as your little heart desires. Add as much fruit as possible to fill in all of the holes; this makes it look like more of a floral arrangement and can be impressive. Another tip of mine is to make sure you take some time with the pineapple. I’m sure the next time I attempt this, the arrangement will come out looking spectacular. I’d change a few things like take more time cutting the pineapple with the flower cutter and make sure the edges were cleaned up, but I was in a hurry since it was for a party. Also, I would make sure to not burn the chocolate. Seriously, what was I thinking?
Have you made this before? Do you have any tips for the newbies in entertaining with food? We’d love to hear your comments. Happy Weekending!
