fruit bouquet

a fun display of fruit

This isn't difficult but it does require a lot of time and effort!  No wonder it's a business on it's own.  It's best of have a variety of different fruits for lots of colour and texture, as well as large fruits such as pineapple and melons to use cookie cutters to cut out fun shapes appropriate for your occasion.  For a special treat for Steph's shower, we dipped strawberries and apple slices in chocolate.  My father in law was happy to help since there was chocolate involved!  Ryan created a sturdy base by super glueing a styrofoam ball down to a weighted base - we had to ensure it would hold the weight of the fruit, and that as people removed skewers it wouldn't topple over.  

what you need:

• an assortment of fruits
• bamboo skewers
• 1 1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate
• 1/2 stick unsalted butter
• 1 pinch of salt
• lemon

what to do:

1. Prep fruit by cutting into various cubes/shapes/sizes.  For fruits that brown (e.g. apples, pears) - be sure to squeeze fresh lemon juice over them to prevent browning.
2. In a double boiler, melt chocolate together with butter.  Remove from heat once melted and add pinch of salt.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil - hold strawberry by the tops and dip into chocolate, then place onto sheet.  Once your sheet is full, refrigerate for at least 2 hours to ensure chocolate is set and easy to handle to skewer.  (You can dip other fruits in the chocolate as well - we did some apple slices but it was tricky because the chocolate would sometimes slip off the fleshy parts of the apple).
3. Create random skewers of fruit and leave at least 2 1/2 inches at bottom of the skewer so that you can stick them into the styrofoam ball.  Continue sticking fruit skewers into the ball - try to stick them into the ball somewhat evenly around so that you don't have one side heavier than the other.
4. Enjoy!

Bevan dipping strawberries...

Bevan licks the chocolate bowl clean!