Creating Edible Fruit Baskets (Ezine Ready)

If you want to give a fruit basket as a gift or have one as a centerpiece on the table you don’t have to buy an expensive one from a fruit arrangement company.  Instead you can create your own at a fraction of the price. 

Materials:

You will need fruit, a container, filler, as well as any additional touches you might want to add such as nuts, wine, a stuffed animal etc.  If you are giving the fruit basket as a gift you might add plastic gift basket wrap to your shopping list.

Select fruit that is free of bruises and blemishes.  Traditional fruit for fruit baskets usually consist of apples, oranges, bananas, and grapes.  However, you might decide to mix it up a bit and create a tropical fruit basket filled with pineapple, mango, kiwi, and papaya. 

Fill the bottom of your container with the filler. You could use colorful shredded paper, tissue paper, cloth napkins, or anything else suitable for the bottom of the container that will provide the fruit with a bit of a cushion.   You could also use crumpled newspaper in the bottom and hide it with tissue paper or cloth. 

Wash and polish the fruit so the edible fruit shines.

Begin to arrange the fruit in the container.  Put the bigger pieces of fruit in the container first, either in the bottom of the basket or off to the side.  Place the smaller pieces of fruit around it.  Frequently check all angles of the container or basket to ensure the arrangement looks nice from all angles. 

Add any additional embellishments to the basket.

Once you have all of the fruit in place and are happy with the arrangement center the basket in the middle of the gift basket wrap.  Bring the ends straight up and gather them above the basket.  Working your hands down towards the fruit, gather the wrap and adjust it to keep bunching neatly towards the center.  When all of the plastic edges have been bunched together, tie the wrap with a rubber band.  

Cover the rubber band with ribbon and fan out the plastic wrap above the ribbon.  If there is too much wrap above the ribbon cut it to no less than 4 inches above the rubber band. 

Tip – Berries are typically not well suited for edible fruit baskets because they do not keep well in the baskets and are easily damaged.