Watermelon Helmet and Football Strawberries

I don't follow football but I do like any opportunity to make festive food.  So for this weekend's Superbowl festivities, I made some football themed food.


I carved a football helmet out of a watermelon and filled it with fruit.  Unfortunately, it's not watermelon season right now and despite paying triple the price, the watermelon did not taste good.  Luckily, hubby was able to run out and pick up some precut watermelon to use instead. 

As far as carving goes, this was pretty easy since it's very minimal cutting and mostly straight lines.  I found instructions at Watermelon Board, which has other great ideas for carving watermelon.  If I were more ambitious or skilled I would have carved a Panther or a Bronco on the side of the helmet.  We'll save that for another time.

Fruit filled watermelon helmet

To go along with the helmet, I made a tray of chocolate covered strawberries decorated with white candy melt to resemble footballs. Candy melt hardens pretty quickly, especially if the strawberries are cold so dipping 120 strawberries was pretty quick work.  The piping takes much longer and because I was running out of time, I only piped white laces on half. 

Instructions:
1. Melt chocolate candy melt according to the package.
2. Dip washed and dried strawberries in melted chocolate.  Place on parchment paper.
3. After chocolate has hardened, pipe melted white candy melt.  Use a piping bag or zippered sandwich bag with the corner cut off.  

Both were quite a hit, but the strawberries disappeared instantly.  You can never go wrong with anything dipped in chocolate!