red white and blue Archives - Proud Italian Cook

Here’s a fun and creative way to serve up your next watermelon, carve it into a “cake”!

Who doesn’t love watermelon, it’s a summer staple usually always present at cookouts and parties. This “cake” is made with sweet refreshing watermelon that has been carved and shaped into a cake, it gets frosted with fresh whipped cream and is decorated with fresh summer berries, this could be the perfect red, white and blue cake for your Fourth of July party.

I’ve seen this done online and I couldn’t wait to try it myself, I was skeptical about putting the cream on a wet surface but all you do is pat the melon down really good with paper towels after it’s cut, and I was pleasantly surprised how easy and quick it was to put it all together.

I actually made this early in the morning, had it all frosted and garnished, stuck it in my fridge and pulled it out later in the evening and it was flawless, everything stayed in tact, in fact the cream set up so nice and firm and it was so easy to cut into nice wedges, even leftovers the next day were perfect!

Find yourself a nice round seedless watermelon, you’re going to be cutting the top and bottom off so pick a size according to how many guests you’ll be serving.

The first thing I recommend doing is whipping your cream, you want very stiff peaks and then refrigerate it, get it nice and cold. Have all your berries washed and ready to go. You can garnish your “cake” with whatever you want, berries, nuts, sprinkles, slivered almonds, coconut or other fruit of your choice, make it your own and be creative!

The trimming was easier than I thought, after you remove the top and bottom stand it upright and start slicing the dark outer green rind off all the way around and make sure you see none of the light green rind underneath showing either, take your time and start trimming and shaping it to look like a cake.

When you’re done trimming it put it on top of the platter you’ll be serving it on, don’t worry it doesn’t have to be perfectly shaped.

The whipped cream will hide all the imperfections and so will all your added fruit and garnishes.

It’s unexpected, impressive and a guaranteed show stopper when you bring it out to the table and no baking required!

Happy Summer and Happy 4th!

Fresh Watermelon Cake

Refreshing, unexpected and a beautiful way to serve a watermelon, transformed to look like a cake. It's healthy and delicious too!

Author: Marie

Ingredients

1 whole seedless watermelon
3 cups of heavy whipping cream ( you'll probably have some extra)
½ teaspoon of vanilla
2 tablespoons of confectioners sugar or other sweetener like stevia
assorted fresh berries and other garnishes of your choice like nuts, sliced almonds, coconut, sprinkles, etc.

Instructions

First whip your cream with the confectioners sugar and vanilla, whip until you get nice stiff peeks, then refrigerate bowl.
Wash and dry the whole watermelon.
With a sharp knife slice the top and bottom off.
Standing upright begin removing the dark green rind all around.
Keep trimming the sides removing the light green rind underneath and trimming it into a nice cylinder shape.
Wipe and pat dry the cylinder with paper towels to remove excess moisture.
Place shaped and patted dry melon on serving platter.
Spread cold whipped cream all over with a rubber spatula, top and sides.
Garnish with berries or other things of your choice.
At this point you can refrigerate it until ready to cut. I placed the whole platter into my fridge and didn't cover it, but if you had a cake plate topper that would fit over the top, that would be fine too but not necessary.
If you have some of the "cake"remaining after cutting just refrigerate soon after so the whipped cream doesn't melt down, especially on a hot day.

No Fourth of July picnic or barbecue is complete without a potato salad of some sort. We all have our favorites but if you want to change it up a bit and bring a little patriotic theme to your table, search out those teeny tiny red, white and blue potatoes.

I happen to come across some at my local farmers market last week and couldn’t resist. These bite size potatoes are no bigger than an olive and they’re just perfect for roasting, they have a tender thin skin so there’s no need for peeling, and they cook up in a matter of minutes.

I also love those colored fingerling potatoes they’re a little larger and cook up just as fast.

My favorite way to prepare them is to simply roast them in a hot oven around 450 degrees, drizzled with olive oil. I like to add in some red pepper to roast along with the potatoes.

When they become fork tender, which doesn’t take long, toss them into a bowl and add chopped red onion or shallots, snipped chives, sliced scallions, fresh parsley, salt and pepper to taste with lots of grated lemon peel.

Whisk up fresh squeezed lemon and olive oil for your dressing and pour it all over and toss, as it sits it just gets better and better as all the flavors start to absorb.

I like to leave some whole and cut a few in half so you can see the vibrant colors. So perfect for the Fourth of July and no worries about keeping it cold, no mayo required.

The nice thing about potato salad is that it goes perfect with just about anything that you make on your grill or pack up for a picnic.

Sip something cold, relax and enjoy your weekend. I’ve been on an ice cube making binge lately, adding blueberries and raspberries to water then freezing the cubes and dropping them into lemonade.