May 10, 2010

DIY Edible Fruit Arrangement Bouquet

I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day! This year, I wanted to make something for my Mom for Mother's Day so I tried my hand at making an edible fruit bouquet. A few months ago, someone in my office received an Edible Arrangement bouquet and since then I've been wanting to make my own DIY edible fruit bouquet. After doing some research online, I cooked up a fruit bouquet that my Mom loved. Of course, she's my Mom so she probably would have liked anything I made, but I really think it came out well! If you're interested in making your own, here's my DIY guide to making an edible fruit bouquet:

edible_fruit_arrangement

I started by buying a bunch of fresh fruit for the bouquet. I picked up a pineapple, cantaloupe, honeydew, strawberries, grapes, and apples. These seem to be the standards for edible bouquets, but you can customize them based the preferences of your recipient. I think the arrangements are usually made with Granny Smith apples, but I used McIntosh apples instead because they're my Mom's favorite. Believe it or not, I also needed a head of lettuce for this project.

diy_fruit_bouqet

In addition to the fruit, I bought wooden skewers (the ones I got were a little too long and I had to cut them shorter), cookie cutters (I used these metal Wilton ones that were strong and deep enough to cut through the fruit well), and a cute planter to put everything in. I've seen edible arrangements made with vases and baskets, but I used a cute coffee cup shaped planter for potted plants.

P1090167

If you're wondering why I bought lettuce, it's because I used it as the base of my arrangement. I peeled a few layers of lettuce off until it fit snugly into my planter. The lettuce is used to hold the fruit skewers in place as the arrangement is put together.

P1090177

Once the planter was ready, I prepared the fruit. To make the arrangement extra yummy, I dipped some of the fruit in chocolate. I dipped cut apples and other fruit into a bowl of melted chocolate chips and then placed it in the refrigerator to set. The chocolate ended up sticking pretty well to the fruit, but it would have probably worked better if I dried off the fruit and then chilled it prior to dipping in chocolate.

P1090178

Then I cut up the pineapple into circles. I simply twisted off the top of the pineapple, cut off the ends, and then made round slices. This worked out great because I didn't have to hassle with cutting the skin off the pineapple which I hate doing.

P1090180

Once it was sliced, I used the cookie cutters to create cute flower shapes.


P1090181

Each slice made about one flower cut-out, but on some of the slices I was able to use the cookie cutter off-center and use the rest of the slice to make half of a cut-out. All together, the pineapple made about 9-15 cut-outs which was not a lot, but enough for the bouquet:

P1090185

I also cut about 3/4 of a cantaloupe and half of a honeydew into wedge segments.

P1090186

Once all of the fruit was cut, I started arranging the fruit starting at the bottom by inserting
the cantaloupe and honeydew wedges facing upward. At the ends of some of the skewers I also added grapes:
P1090190

Once I added the cantaloupe and honeydew around the bottom, I randomly inserted more fruit skewers into the lettuce to begin to fill it up. I added a lot of the chocolate skewers during this phase because all though they are really delicious, the chocolate looks a bit messy.

diy_edible_arrangement

Once most of the bouquet was filled in, I finished up by adding the flower shaped fruits I cut earlier. Since the flower shaped ones are the prettiest I wanted to save them for last so they would be the most visible. I put a few grapes on each skewer, followed by a flower shaped fruit. Once the skewer was inserted into the lettuce head, I topped it with a strawberry or grape.

P1090197

After a little more arranging, my bouquet was complete! And delicious!

edible_fruit_arrangement

edible_fruit_bouquet

Here's a view from the top:

diy_edible_fruit_bouqeut_arrangement

Overall the entire project took me about 2 hours, but it was well worth it because the fruit bouquet ended up being a big hit and my Mom loved it.

This project is shared on The Lettered CottageA Soft Place, Between Naps on a Porch, Persimmon Perch, Today's Creative Blog, Silly Little Sparrow, Santa's Gift Shoppe; stop by and check out some of the other great projects featured!

22 comments:

Jo said...

I think w/ your tutorial I'll be able to finally make one of these Thanks a bunch!!

Hoosier Homemade said...

How fun! I've been wanting to make one of these for a long time!
I like how you used the lettuce! Brillant!
~Liz

Anonymous said...

Great tutorial! Thanks for sharing!

Katie said...

Edible arrangements is one of my favs. Thank you for doing this. Such a great idea to put the lettuce in!

Anonymous said...

SO cute, I love it! Great job! ~Sam

Jill said...

What a lovely gift! I love the picture of the top view.

Santa's Gift Shoppe and Ideas said...

Hi..I’m Barb….I popped over from Persimmonperch Link Party. Great job on this. I love it!!! I wanted to be your newest followerbut cannot fin the place to follower from blogger. I hope you will get a chance to visit my blog @ santasgiftshoppe.blogspot.com
& get inspired by something for your family/home. I hope you will follow me as well. Nice to meet ya new friend!!!

Lara Harris said...

Great idea & considering what they charge for these, bravo!

Julia said...

Love it, especially the cheery polka dot container! I never would have thought to use lettuce.

Katherine @ Grass Stains said...

We have Edible Arrangements here and I can't afford them! What a FANTASTIC idea. Yours looked every bit as good as theirs, girrrrrl! Great job.

Jenny @ DIY Newlyweds said...

Thanks for all of the compliments, you guys are too kind!

Barb, I added a link at the top right of my page to follow me on Google. Thanks for the follow!

Crafty Like Lindy said...

Thanks so much for posting this! I have been wanting to make one of these forever!

Erin said...

How absolutely perfect!!! Your arrangement is fantastic!

Jen said...

You did a great job on the edible arrangement. I bet your mom loved all the time and love you put into it.

The Rantings of a Drama Queen's Mum said...

That came out awesome.

Amanda @ Our Humble A{Bowe}d said...

I made one for a baby shower last summer, too. After making one, I understood why Edible Arrangements charged so much. :) Yours turned out great.

Austin said...

I am psyched to have found this how-to guide - I plan to make one this week for a friend from work's going away party. Super excited, and can't wait to see how it turns out!!

Anonymous said...

how do you keep the apples from turning dark and how long does the fruit remain fresh looking?

Jenny @ DIY Newlyweds said...

I would definitely refrigerate the arraignment when you're not munching on it. The apples I used were covered in chocolate, so that kept them from browning. You could also try spraying the fruit with a little lemon juice to delay browning.

Anonymous said...

Dip them in lemon juice! ;)

Anonymous said...

Hi, I live in the United States Virgin Islands, St.Croix and made an edible arrangement for a friend birthday and I have been getting orders like crazy... I love the lettuce idea!

Anonymous said...

Lettuce is brilliant! If you melt a little bit of coconut oil in with the chocolate you will get a smooth glossy coating. Thanks for the post.