Flip-Flop Cakes and a Watermelon Fruit Kebobs Tutorial

Flip-flops made their appearance in a few details of our annual pool party—and not only in terms of our footwear. They could also be found in the invitation, table decorations, and the cakes I made.

© June Scroggin, All Rights Reserved

I baked four humongous simple rectangular white cakes, layering them in sets of two with a simple and easy mixture of strawberry and whipped cream filling. Flip-flop shapes were cut out using a very sharp knife and a template I made out of poster board. If you flip your template over after cutting out the first cake, then you have an opposing flip-flop (i.e., a right- and a left-shoe).

To make the cake images I had in my head a reality for this party, I took the first of a series of cake decorating classes over April and May. My friend Janel also took that class. She and her mother, Judy, came over Friday night to help me decorate the cakes and assemble the fruit kebobs. Their help was such a blessing and kept me from having to stay up all night.

© June Scroggin, All Rights Reserved

Air Heads ribbon candy worked wonderfully for making the thong pieces of the flip-flops. Because my cakes are over-sized, we simply seamed the ends of two of the candies together and added an icing flower to cover the resulting seam.

Earlier in the day I made huge amounts of icing and sorted it out into different containers to which food coloring was added to make a supply of multicolored icing for the decorations. Then Janel and I did fun things with our cake decorating bags/tips.

© Dub Scroggin, All Rights Reserved

We had so much fun decorating the cakes in crazy colors.

© Dub Scroggin, All Rights Reserved

Aren’t the cakes as cute as they can be?

Watermelon Fruit Kebobs Tutorial

© Dub Scroggin, All Rights Reserved

Here’s how to assemble a fruit kebob display that makes a great centerpiece and an easy treat for guests to handle.

• Select the fruits you want to use for your kebobs. If using apples or other fruits that will turn brown, dip the fruit in lemon juice after cutting. Using long skewers, insert into bits of various fruit, filling about ½ of each skewer. I make these the night before a party, wrapping the finished kebobs well and storing in the fridge until time for assembly.
• Dust a platter with brown sugar to simulate beach sand (optional). Slice a bit of the bottom of a watermelon (just the rind, don’t cut through to the fruit inside) so it sits flat on your platter.
• Simply insert your assembled fruit kebobs all around the watermelon and its ready for folks to pull and eat.

© Dub Scroggin, All Rights Reserved

The watermelon was chock-full of the kebobs; in the picture, people were already pulling and enjoying them.

Pool Party Results

The party was a blast. We partied from 2 p.m. until the last group of guests left about midnight. My husband and I had everything cleaned up, the dishwasher doing its job, and all back to normal within an hour after the party. All the work was well worth it because everyone enjoyed the food, pool, and each other. We think this was our best party ever.

This post concludes my pool party series. Now I have sewing projects to do as one of our vacations is coming up very soon.