The fruit elephant

Have you ever googled watermelon carvings? There are some incredibly talented people out there who can carve watermelons into amazing stuff, like flowers and designs.

I'm not one of them.

I CAN, however, make a watermelon into a fruit bowl, and use more fruit to give it a cute little elephant face. This is my fruit elephant tutorial.

Here's the final product:

Eat me! I'm fruity!



You need a watermelon and fruit. I used apples, blackberries, and pineapple - but there's no rules, here. Just find something to use for his head, and go from there.

First cut the top off your watermelon and carve it out like a pumpkin.

Then slice the end off an apple (or orange, or whatever) to make the head. Check to try to duplicate the curve of the watermelon in the cut end of your head piece.

I had to hollow mine out a little bit to get it to curve correctly.

Stick a bunch of toothpicks inside the melon through to the outside, then stab them into the head piece. Use as many as you need. I used my kitchen pliers (yes, I have a pair) to trim off the pokey bits.

Once the head is stuck, poke a few toothpicks into the head so that you can attach the trunk.

For the trunk, I peeled the skin off an apple in a coil shape to make it curl like an elephant's trunk. Word to the wise - make it thicker rather than thinner, to make it easier to stab the toothpicks into it.

Nose on!

Now you can do the face. I used slices of blackberries layered over apple pieces to make eyes (again, poked in to the apple with toothpicks) but there are loads of different ways to do this. Put your pachyderm into a dish and fill with fruit inside and around.

Aren't I cute?