Winnie the Pooh and Piglet

You all know the famous Winnie the Pooh, known for his red shirt and his yellow ears. His love for honey and sleeping makes him relatable yet ten-times cuter. We also know Piglet his best friend who cheers him up and he does the same for her. Having such an appreciation for their friendship I wanted to recreate their love for each other in some sort of way. As a sophomore and in my high school foods class, which I greatly enjoy, we were challenged to an edible art contest. Putting this contest and my love for Winnie and Piglet together, I decided to portray them in the form of fruit. This was a fun, entertaining, and delicious challenge.

For this edible art challenge not many supplies were used which makes it a simple and easy yet cute and delicious piece of work. Simply, I only used a small variety of knives which were used to cut and even skin some of the fruit peels. A peeler was only used for the kiwi and a dish to put Winnie and Piglet together. The necessary ingredients for this recipe is a pineapple, watermelon, several strawberries (maybe 7 or 8), 2 kiwi, olives sliced up and used as eyes, and then you have everything you need. Seriously the easiest most refreshing treat to make that will also impress your friends.

In the first step I gathered all of my ingredients in eye range and planned out a way that would be most effective. The route I took required me to collect the kiwi and peel off their fuzzy brown skin. As this took a little time to precisely take all the skin off and make sure I didn't peel to deep, it was a necessary step in making sure the background was as green as possible. After peeling I took one of my knives and started slicing the kiwi into thin pieces that looked about the same size. Having them be much different in sizes would make the background look uneven and you won't get the flat surface needed for placing. After I was done, I placed the sliced and peeled kiwis to the side and moved onto my next piece of fruit.

Being a 15 year old girl who has never cut a pineapple before, this step was in fact the highlight of my week. I personally had never liked pineapple as I found it too sweet and judged it too soon. When taking the pineapple over the my station and giving it a deeper look I really got to see how beautiful it was. It's coloring, its shape, even the pointy things on it that aren't even pointy. And if you were in my class all you heard that whole entire day was the words, "look at it, isn't it beautiful?" basically on repeat. As my teacher has taught me, to see if a pineapple is ripe and ready to cut into, you pull one of the leaves off and if its comes off easy and whole you know its ready to be cut into. And so our pineapple was and I ripped off the rest of the leaves and turned it flat on its side and cut the circular ends off of it. You then place it back up flat and start peeling the outside layer to take off all of the green and pointy little things on the skin of the pineapple. After this is done I turned it back flat onto its side and cut it into large circular rims so that they were easier to shape for poohs head. They need to be a good thickness so that you can not see through it but not thick enough that you can't cut through it. I shaped the pineapple to look like Poohs head, ears, and arms, with a smaller knife now. As I finished I placed the pineapple to the side and moved on.

Now as I said I had never cut a pineapple before, and the same stands for a watermelon so this was also a great learning experience. I was taught to start with the middle and cut down from there. And to dig the knife into the rim slightly before cutting all the way through so that the cut comes easier. Once cut place the no needed half to the side and you'll only need half the watermelon and wrap it up to keep it fresh. Using the piece we will need for Piglet, I cut out the ear shapes into tiny pointy triangles that were just taken right off of the watermelon. As you can see not much was needed for the watermelon. Now onto the next step.

In the final fruit cutting step we are dealing with strawberries. They're red, perfect for Poohs shirt, delicious, perfect for eating, and have a multi use purpose. I started by simply cutting the stem off and washing each strawberry and I used them. Then I went into slicing the strawberry into thin slices and then cutting then in half after that so you get shapes that look like half a circle. After I did this to about 4 strawberries I pushed them to the side and started peeling the skin off of other strawberries, after washing and cutting the stem off as well. The skin will be used for Poohs shirt so the seeds and needed and the deep red is needed. After this all the fruit is cut and it's time to assemble.

After all the fruit is cut up and shaped how it is needed, it is time to get a final plate and assemble everything together. Starting with the Pooh arms place them and follow the picture above. Then attach his strawberry sleeve with both the skin and the half circle shapes. Now use Piglet's ears and head shape to connect to Pooh's arms and fit next to the spot his head is going to be in. Now place the head above the shirt and connect the ears as well. After all the pieces are together start placing the sliced kiwi around Pooh and Piglet until every opened space is filled. Take an olive and thinly slice it to use the skin as finishing touches for the eyes and mouths. Finally use some of the watermelon left over rim for Piglet's arms on top of Pooh's. After all this is complete you can admire all of the hard work and dedication that was put into this edible art.

As I take a look back onto my Edible Artwork and reflect I am truly happy with the way everything came out. This project wasn't at all what I was expecting but I'm glad with the results in the end. I am truly proud of myself and all the time and effort I put into it. I hope whoever is reading this enjoys it as much as I did and whoever makes it next feels the same as well!