Edible Table Decoration Christmas Fruit Platter

My daughter and I had so much fun in the kitchen preparing this Christmas fruit platter for our family Christmas lunch. It's colorful, mostly healthy, and is sure to be a good talking point at Christmas celebrations! No baking, no wait time, just a fun platter you can make with your children for Christmas.

After buying your seasonal fruits and skewers, the best fun about making this platter, is cutting and preparing the fruit. Think of which fruit will look great on the skewers and that the children, and adults alike will enjoy to eat.

We started out with grapes and blueberries and strawberries, because they look like Christmas boubles when you thread them on the skewers, but strawberries and fresh pineapple pieces would be a good choice too.

Then I cut rock-melon, green melon and Watermellon into slices around 1cm wide.

Next is the fun part! My daughter and I used cookie cutters to cut out the slices of melon into Christmas shapes. I was lucky to find cookie cutters in Christmas shapes at my local grocery store, but if you don't have Christmas cookie cutter shapes, you could use circles and stars, or even attempt to cut little Christmas stocking, gingerbread men, or angel shapes yourself!

I also used a melon baller to cut some of the melons into balls to thread on the skewers.

Once the fruit is cut it's time to prepare the stand for your skewers. I chose a green melon cut in half and with the fruit scopped out. I then cut the top off it, so it was a wide slice, or bottomless vase. You could do the same with rock-melon, or a small watermelon.

Inside I placed one large broccoli florette, trimmed to sit in the makeshift melon vase. It is the broccoli which you push the sharp ends of the skewers through to hold them in place. You could stick your skewers through at this stage, and arrange them in place, like you're making a flower arrangement, or you can thread the fruit on halfway first and them push them into place in the broccoli.

I like the result of using a single florette of broccoli to do this because it holds the skewers firmly in place, and the green color of this vegetable adds to the Christmas feel. Besides this, it means your entire platter is edible!

If you choose a large platter or plate to stand your base on, and there's room for you to add seasonal fruits around the base. I chose to do this and then was able to add fresh cherries and lychee's to my platter, which otherwise I wouldn't have been able to thread on the skewers.

Also, I used the standard size bamboo barbeque skewers. You can buy them in half size, which would make a smaller version of this fruit platter.

Once I'd prepared the base and it sat sturdy on my plate (I trimmed the melon so it sat flush on the plate), my daughter and I began to thread the skewers and push them into the broccoli, as if we were arranging a flower arrangement.

The broccoli holds the skewers firmly in place, so if you add fruit to about half the length of the skewer and push it into the broccoli until it's still firm, you can then add more fruit if there's still space. We slid the fruit down the skewers so that the first piece on each skewer sat on top of the broccoli.

When you're arranging the fruit on the stick, anything goes! Just have some fun with it! We thread some of the melon which was cut into Christmas shapes through the side and through the length, so that when you're looking at the final arrangement some of the little ginger-bread men, Christmas hats and stars are facing you in full view.

At this point, you will now have a bright and colorful and very healthy Christmas fruit platter... But it doesn't have to stay that way! You can add some treats, like we did if you like!

I threaded apricot coconut balls onto the skewers (As pictured in White), you could use little rum balls or any other sweets you source locally which have a semi hard texture and are able to be thread on skewers! You could even add strawberries dipped in Chocolate, decorated in Christmas sprinkles!

Whether you decide to keep it healthy, or add some treats to your platter, this edible table decoration is bound to make a statement at your Christmas gathering during the holiday season!

• If you need to transport this platter to a party, you are best to arrange the base and the skwers separately and arrange the skewers into the base when you arrive, as the platter is quite tall and buly for transporting. Otherwise, you could line a bucket with a tea towel and transport it inside that!
• You could make this fruit platter yourself in about 15 minutes. But why not involve your kids in making this. Set them up at the dining table with a plate of cut melon slices and cookie cutters and you'll find they'll have about an hour of fun making this dish.
• Especially because of the melon used in this dish, keep it in the refrigerator after you've put it together. It will keep chilled overnight if you want to prepare it the evening before your celebration.
• You don't have to stick to a Christmas theme, I can emagine it for Valentine's Day filled with melon hearts, or for Birthday parties, made with melon stars!