Happy Birthday Fruit “Cake” ~ A Tutorial
on Jun 06, 2012, Updated Oct 25, 2023
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Sometimes, it’s nice to have an alternative to the traditional flour and sugar cake. For my baby’s second birthday last weekend, I made a cake from just fruit {and toothpicks}.
Isn’t it darling? It wasn’t that hard, and it was a very nice change.
Here’s how to make your own – the directions are found in the book Fruit Bouquets for Celebrations which we picked up at the grocery store! There are a lot of really cute ideas in this book! I highly recommend it.
You’ll need: watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew melon, grapes {green & purple}, blueberries, pineapple, and toothpicks.
To make your own “fruit” cake: Start with a slab of watermelon. Each cake layer is about 3″ tall, so keep that in mind.
Get a slab of watermelon by cutting the top and bottom off (it should be larger than the finished size of 3″). Then carefully, cut the rind off, trying to keep the watermelon chunk round.
To get your layers as even as possible, use a ruler and insert toothpicks all around your fruit at 3″. Rest your knife on top of the toothpicks and slice off the top layer to get an even 3″ slab.
For layer #2, cut the top and bottom off a honeydew melon. Clean out the seeds and cut the rind off this melon too. Using the same toothpick trick from the watermelon, make this slab also an even 3″ from top to bottom.
For layer #3, cut the bottom off the cantaloupe. Use the same toothpick trick, but you want to keep the cantaloupe bowl shaped, so measure down from the top.
Carefully cut the rind off the cantaloupe and even it out.
Stack up your layers. Don’t worry too much about minor imperfections – you’ll fix them with the “frosting.” If you need to, add toothpicks to hold the layers together.
Now it’s time to decorate!
To make the flowers, cut a small bit off the end of grape. Make six slits in the grape. Be careful not to slice all the way through. Insert a toothpick through the grape and add a blueberry center!
For the candles, stack blueberries on a toothpick and a small piece of pineapple to make the flame!
And last, but not least, make a delicious fruit salad with all of the leftovers!
Linking up: Real Food Wednesday; WFMW; Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways; Simple Lives Thursday;
Love, love, love this!!! A beautiful “cake,” and gorgeous photos – nicely done!
Thanks, Robin!! 🙂
LOVE this! What a fun and refreshing take on a cake 🙂 Thanks so much for sharing at Mom On Timeout!
My husband hates flour and sugar cakes and so I searched fruit on pinterest and found your post! This looks wonderful! The only change I’m going to make is replacing the blueberries for raspberries. My husband isnt a big fan of blueberries and I thought raspberries would make good flower centers. Thanks so much for posting! 🙂 I’m excited about attempting this kind of cake!!! (i’ve not done anything with fruit before!)
Yay! Good luck and thanks for letting me know. I’d love to hear how it turns out. 🙂
I made this last night and it turned out great! I had a hard time keeping the grapes on it so I had to use a ton of tooth picks to keep them on, but it turned out great! Instead of candles I did the same concept but cut green grapes and put them on top of a whole red grape and made palm trees on top! I have a picture but I’m not sure if I can post it. It was kind of hard to serve, because of all of the toothpicks! but everyone loved it!! we had a fruit dip to go with it instead of ice cream and it was devine! 🙂 Great for a hot july evening!!
oh and fyi the raspberries DID NOT WORK… 🙁 I would not recommend them, they left red coloring on the fruit.
I’d love to see your picture! You can email it to me if you’d like! [email protected] 🙂 Thanks so much for commenting!
This is sooo cute! How do you serve it?
I just cut it up. It looked more like fruit salad than cake! 😉
What a great idea! Love this new take on “fruit cake!”
Oh my gosh Michelle, this is awesome! I love it!! Pinning this!
Thanks, Diana!
I love it! The directions were so clear. I pinned it and shared.
Thank you, too, Barb!!
Thank you so much for this idea. We try to instill healthy eating with our kids and for our 2 year old’s party this weekend I made this, and it was a huge hit. He loved the grapes. I have to admit that those grape flowers are much more difficult to make than I had anticipated. Thanks again!
Thanks for sharing your story!! I’m glad the cake was a hit. 🙂 I’m not sure why, but I didn’t have too hard of a time making those flowers. My mom did, but I cut them right out. Normally, I have a lot of trouble with things like that though. The trick is to cut just enough (but not too much…). 🙂
Thank you so much for this idea! My son has severe food allergies and so I’m always looking for alternatives. He will be 2 in October and I plan to do this idea then and saving for future reference for school parties!
You’re welcome! Let me know how it turns out for you!
Hi,
WHen you say you “just cut it up” did you have to take it apart to do that, or did you keep it whole (and just cut it like it was a normal cake.
Well, it doesn’t really cut like a normal cake would – at least I didn’t end up with cute little slices to serve. 🙂 But I didn’t take the whole thing apart to cut it up either. I just sliced off the assembled cake. Good luck!
Wow, cool idea!
Now THIS is a cake I could totally go for! I pinned this. And my birthday is in 4 days, maybe I”ll make this for me!
Happy Birthday!! 🙂
What a great idea! I may decorate it with some sugar-free meringues.
How fun. I think my family would smack me if I made this instead of cake.
I made a fruit birthday cake for my daughter’s school treat on her birthday last year. It was a big hit, yours looks beautiful!
They’re fun, aren’t they! Glad your cake was a hit. 🙂
Thank you for the great photos and instructions. My cake creation went smoothly and I was able to make the grape/blueberry flowers too! I served it with a fruit dip made with banana, frozen pineapple and coconut milk.
Your fruit dip sounds wonderful! I’m so glad you’re happy with your fruit cake! 🙂
Thank you for sharing those great fruit cake ideals. I will be trying them.