Tag Archives: tile

How to Decorate Food With Watermelon Carvings

Posted on by

Watermelon is an incredibly versatile fruit that can used to decorate a number of desserts, main dishes and also cocktails. You can do more with it than carve it up into chunks and throw it into fruit salad. Watermelon is easy to work with and holds it’s shape which is not something that can be said of all fruits.

One way to get artistic with them is to make watermelon roses. You can line a bowl with these roses or, perch them on top of an arrangement with a toothpick. The roses can also be used to rim a cake or a dish of a sorbet. They are the perfect frozen garnish for a sorbet or ice cream cake. They also suit many types of cocktails, especially those using a melon based liquor.

Makin a watermelon rose one is easy enough to do. You use a knife to cut a large chunk of fruit from the watermelon and then carve out five to seven thinner strips of watermelon in different thicknesses and lengths. You then take the strips at either end and coil them around each other to make a rose shape. Fruit dip or melted chocolate can help your roses stick together. You can also spear them on the green stem of a toothpick.

The types of watermelon carvings that can be made are as only as limited as your imagination. Using a kitchen knife you can hollow out the flesh from the rind and make a decorative bowl. People make everything imaginable from watermelons including pirate ships and baby carriages. The finished carving be filed with blueberries, melons, grapes and strawberries.

You can also use a melon baller on watermelon flesh. You can spear these with other fruits, stack them or use them as décor for ice cream or any other dessert. Watermelon balls also look great frozen in an ice cube or frozen by themselves and dropped in a cocktail. They go especially well in a tall frosty glass of coconut water.

Another interesting project is to simply cut flat slices of watermelon and then use cookie cutters to create watermelon themes. You can then arrange these shapes as desired on a plate or around a dessert.

One of the nicest carvings to be made out of a whole watermelon is the lotus shape. Simply cut the peel off of the top of a watermelon and then start making wedge shaped cuts into the flesh that look like petals. Keep doing this in a spiral upwards until you have what looks as a closed lotus bud shape.

How to Decorate Dessert Plates With Sauces, Creams, Flakes and Powders

Posted on by

Most desserts are pretty but you can serve them up so they look like they were made by a five-star restaurant if you do it right. You can make a plate that practically looks like an abstract piece of art if you are clever with how you drool these substances.

How you are going to decorate and what substances you are going to use to decorate are going to be determined by the dessert that you will be serving. This will help you decide on the flavors and colors. First off it is important to choose flavors that complement each other. A good example would be cherry and chocolate together, as would be the case with decorating a Black Forest Cake. You could sprinkle cherry sauce along with grated black chocolate to make a nice garnish. Another nice combination is a white chocolate cheesecake with some kind of fruit puree.

Fruit purees are incredibly versatile and make beautiful “paints” for plates. Blueberry makes blue, raspberries red, kiwi fruits a nice green, Mangos, papayas or oranges make nice orange and nectarines and yellow plums make yellow. If you want to make a vibrant green try grinding up mint leaves. You can use more than one puree to decorate a plate especially if the desert is somewhat neutral, like a rice or a tapioca pudding, a Bavarian crème or a plain cheesecake.

You can also just use syrups to decorate a plate. You can use caramel or chocolate syrup and also the brines that fruit are pickled in to make nice designs on a plate. For instance if you are looking for a striking pink color to play with on a plate then you might consider using maraschino cherry juice.

Flavored powders and sugars also look nice sprinkled on a plate. You can be unorthodox and use Strawberry Quick or candied sour powders to decorate the edge of a dessert. You can also use things like edible glitter. If you want a plate to look especially luxurious you can sprinkle edible gold glitter on the plate.

One of the nicest decorative elements that there is in the food world is whipped cream. Put it in a piping bag or buy it in a can and decorate your creation with dollops, stripes and kisses of cream.

Remember that the simpler you keep the plate décor, the more elegant it will look. You do not want a mish-mash of flavors or designs or this could confuse the aesthetics of the dish.