Welcome to How to Cook That I'm Ann Reardon and this week we're making the 10 BEST watermelon
recipes!
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Recipe number 1 is a Super easy one ... watermelon popsicles.
To make these all you need to do is cut some pieces of fresh watermelon and then place
them into a food processor and puree it until it is smooth.
Pour that into cups making them around 2/3 full.
And then take a piece of card and push a cake-pop stick through the centre and rest that over
the top of each cup to hold it in place for the handle.
And then put that in the freezer to freeze.
In a bowl place some cream cheese, vanilla and sugar and mix that together.
Spread spoonfuls around the top of the frozen watermelon.
And I'll put all of the recipe quantities for all of these on the howtocookthat.net
website for you and there is a link to that below.
Peel and chop some kiwi fruit and puree that and if you don't have a food processor you
could mash the fruit using a potato masher instead.
Spoon two tablespoons on top of each cup and return them to the freezer.
Once they are frozen you can just pull them out and eat them, I like to give kids the
cup as well so they can put them back in between bites and that just catches any drips.
Next we have ... Ombre Watermelon Dessert.
To make this you will need biscuits (cookies) and butter for the base, gelatin, cream, watermelon
juice that has been strained, lime juice, egg whites and sugar.
Pour some of the watermelon juice into the gelatin and stir it.
To make watermelon juice you can if you have one use a juicer and that is quite convenient
because it separates out the juice and the pulp for you.
Or you can use a food processor to puree it and then just pour that through a fine sieve
to strain it.
Now hang on to this pulp because we are going to use it in the next recipe.
Back to our ombre dessert, leave that gelatin to absorb the water.
And then crush the biscuits (cookies) in a food processor or you can put them in a bag
and bash them with a rolling pin instead.
Then mix in the melted butter into those crushed biscuits.
And tip all of that into the base of a loose based tin and press the crumbs down tightly
using the back of a spoon.
Place the egg whites over a pan of simmering water, and add about 1/2 of the sugar and
whisk that together.
You can keep whisking this by hand or you cna use an electric mixer if you've got one
because that would be much easier.
And keep going until the egg whites are hot, and have stiff peaks then leave that to cool.
Tip the gelatin mixture into a large bowl and microwave it until the gelatin is melted
and it looks liquid.
Pour in the rest of your juice and stir that well together.
Put the cream and the rest of your sugar into a bowl and whisk that until you get firm peaks.
Now you want to add about 1/3 of the cream to the juice and mix it in thoroughly.
Then about a cup of that mixture into the egg whites and mix that through.
Mixing through the small amount first just makes it easier for these to combine together
while keeping some of the air in it.
So now, yes next combine all of those things together ... the watermelon juice, the whites
and all of the cream just folding them together, keeping in as much air in the mixture as possible.
Tip that into your tin and place it into the fridge to set, while it is setting it will
separate out into that top moussey layer and the ombre jelly underneath.
And you just have to cut slices of this and serve it cold.
And it looks pretty and it tastes of course of watermelon because that's the main ingredient
in it.
Now let's make Watermelon Fruit Leather.
Remember that pulp we had left over from straining our juice?
Take that and put it in a nut milk bag, just scoop it in.
And you can see immediately already we have more juice separating from the pulp.
Just hang the bag up over a bowl and leave it for about 30 minutes so it can drip and
drain out and you get a drier pulp.
Spread that pulp out to form a square, and you can mix some sugar into this if you want
it to be sweeter or you can leave it as it is to make it super healthy.
Then bake that in the oven on low heat for 2 hours, you're basically trying to dry it
out not so much bake it.
And then it will look like this.
I've seen other recipes that say to bake it for 8 hours - but by adapting the recipe and
adding in the nut milk bag stage to strain some of the liquid out of it then you can
do it in just two hours.
Use a pizza cutter to cut it into strips and roll it up with some non-stick baking paper.
Now the pulp from 1/2 a melon made only 3 roll ups so if you want to make these in bulk
you're going to need a LOT of watermelon juice to use for something else.
To make easy, yummy and refreshing Watermelon Sorbet cut up your watermelon into small pieces
and then put them on a lined tray and you want to freeze them for at least a few hours.
Place the frozen pieces into a food processor and process until you get a fine sorbet.
Serve scoops into small bowls and sprinkle with chocolate chips for the seeds if you
like.
Next we have Watermelon Cookies.
This is the only recipe I am including that doesn't actually have watermelon in it - but
they are super cute and easy to make.
To make them you will need butter, icing sugar, flour, vanilla,
green and red food colouring, cornflour and egg yolks.
Add the sugar to the butter, and mix it until it is light and fluffy.
Add in the egg yolks and vanilla and stir it again.
Then finally add in the flours and mix until they are just combined.
Split the mixture into three bowls and leave one plain, colour one green and the other
red.
Take the red mixture and make a long snake.
And then wrap that tightly in plastic wrap and freeze it.
Roll out the plain mixture between two sheets of plastic wrap to make a long rectangle.
Then remove the top plastic and place the frozen red in the centre.
Using your plastic wrap, wrap the plain mixture around the red one just like you are wrapping
up a present
Place that back in the freezer while you roll out the green.
And again you want a long rectangle.
Remove the plastic wrap from the top and add your roll to the middle and wrap it up just
like you did before.
If you have any little gaps when you're wrapping you can fill them with extra green from the
end, just like this so the whole thing is covered.
Then freeze that again for about 30 minutes.
Then you simply want to slice the roll and you get these cute little watermelons.
You can leave them whole like this or cut them in half to make slices.
Then add some mini choc chips to each one for the seeds.
They look super cute and this recipe makes two full trays of them.
And all you need to do is bake them for 15 minutes and then leave them to cool.
Next we have a beautiful Watermelon Cake inspired by one from Black Star Pastry.
To make it take a whole watermelon and cut off the rind.
JUst get all of the white bits off there too.
Then cut slices of the watermelon trying to make them as even as you can.
Use a cake ring to cut a circle from each piece.
If you don't have a cake ring it's ok you can just use a saucer upside down and cut
around it with a knife.
Also cut layers of sponge cake to match the same size circle and my spongecake recipe
and video is on the website for you.
Whip 600ml of cream with some vanilla and whip that until you stiff peaks.
Place the first layer of cake onto a stand or plate and then add a cylinder of acetate
around it, and you can just buy acetate online if you don't have any.
If you have a cake ring you can add that to the base, if not just tape the acetate together
so that it doesn't come undone.
I've taped it at the top of mine.
Pipe in a layer of cream, just doing circles, then add a disc of watermelon on top.
Pushing it down into place.
Sprinkle on some almond meal and this just helps absorb any excess moisture sitting on
top of the watermelon so that the cream sits on it properly and doesn't slide off.
Pipe on another layer of cream and then add your next layer of cake pushing it down into
place.
More cream.
Then push down another disc of watermelon and of course top that with more cream.
Slice up some strawberries and use them to decorate the top of your cake.
Then sprinkle it with pistachios for some green colour and some blueberries and then
refrigerate that for 30 minutes.
Remove the cake ring.
Then peel off the acetate just prior to when you want to serve it.
Cut slices and serve immediately, this makes an easy, quick cake with perfect looking layers.
Next we have Watermelon and Yogurt Ice Cream.
Puree some watermelon and then in an ice-cream machine add 2 cups of cold watermelon puree
and 1 cup of vanilla yogurt.
I found these proportions really refreshing and light, if you are after something more
creamy and rich, you can increase the proportion of the yoghurt and decrease the amount of
watermelon juice.
Churn until it is firm and then serve scoops of your yogurt watermelon ice cream, and this
so refreshing on a hot day.
Now for my favourite one, this is super easy Watermelon Pizza!
Cut a slice of watermelon and make it round just like you did for the cake, or you could
use a slice with the rind on if you wanted to.
In a bowl mix together the cream cheese, icing sugar and vanilla and once you've got that
all smooth just add it to the centre of the watermelon and spread it out.
Leaving a border of your watermelon around the edge.
Sprinkle on blueberries, pistachios and chopped strawberries and then cut it into pizza shaped
slices and serve immediately.
This is actually still good the next day if you store it in the fridge but when dealing
with fresh fruit I always like it better if it's eaten the same day.
For more Watermelon ideas you can see my Watermelon cheesecake recipe from last year or the how
to carve a watermelon video or even the Fruit Slushie video.
And you can find more of my 10 Best Recipe series here.
Make it a great week and I'll see you on Friday.