How to make a slice of watermelon cake topper

Here in southern Mississippi, the hot summer weather had already taken over and the watermelon patches are already producing big, bright watermelons!

Enjoying a slice of cold watermelon is one of my favorite things in the summertime, so I fell in love with this party theme. For the cake, I was asked to include the stripes of watermelon and also a bitten slice on top. Isn’t that fun?

Because of the shape of a slice of watermelon, I knew doing it from cake would be difficult, so I opted to make it with rice cereal treats. I took pics as I made it and today I want to show you how I made the slice of watermelon cake topper!

Here’s what I used:
Prepared rice cereal treats
Half ball pan (or bowl with ~6″ diameter)
Non-stick cooking spray
Large sharp knife
Small round crinkled cookie cutter (about 1.5″ or 3-4cm)
Red, white, green and black fondant
Xacto knife
Pizza wheel
Sugar glue (or water) and a small paint brush
Tiny teardrop cutter
Vegetable shortening (optional)

Step 1:
Prepare rice cereal treats. I follow the instructions on the back of the marshmallows to make these!

Step 2:
Spray a half ball pan with nonstick cooking spray. I use the Wilton sports ball pan set (or half of it) but you could also use a bowl of similar size.

Step 3:
Tightly press the rice cereal treats into the pan until it’s very firm. You’ll want to do this while the mixture is still warm so that it will be easier to press into the pan.

Step 4:
Once you have it packed in, flip out the half ball onto a mat and stick it in the refrigerator to chill and harden for at least 15 minutes.

Step 5:
After the shape has chilled, take a large, sharp knife and cut the ball in half. Then cut again to make a narrower wedge and then you’ll also have 2 very smooth sides.

Step 6:
Using a crinkle edged round cutter, you can take a “bite” out of the top of the wedge.

Step 7:
Get a ball of red fondant and roll it out  large enough to cover the slice. I like to roll it thick so that the bumpiness of the cereal underneath is not noticeable.

Step 8:
Lay the fondant over the wedge and smooth it down with your fingers, being careful to work it into the missing bite without tearing it.

Step 9:
Trim the excess fondant leaving just a very small skirt around the edges.

Step 10:
Tuck the edges under and smooth it down. I like to press the edges into the cereal so that it sticks and is smooth on the bottom.

Step 11:
Use a ball tool to make teeth marks in the missing bite. This step is not necessary but I love little details like this!

Step 12:
Roll out some white fondant and set the slice of watermelon on top of it. You’re going to want to trim it into the shape of a football (an American football) so that it’ll wrap up under the bottom of the watermelon slice.

Step 13:
Gently wrap the fondant underneath the slice and form it all the way to the edges. I used my Xacto knife to trim until I got it to “fit”.
*Note – I was able to gently press my fondant on to the rice cereal and it stuck with no problem. If you have trouble getting your fondant to stick, you may want to paint on a thin layer of sugar glue before attaching it to the slice.

Step 14:
Repeat steps 12 and 13 for the green layer of “watermelon rind”. Again, use sugar glue to attach the green to the white if it doesn’t stick on it’s own.

Step 15:
Roll out a small amount of black fondant very thin. Let it dry for 10-15 minutes so that it’s easy to cut out the small shapes.

Step 16:
Cut out the watermelon seeds and attach them with a tiny dot of sugar glue. Allow them to dry for a few minutes and you’re done.

Step 17:
I rubbed a thin layer of vegetable shortening over my entire watermelon slice after it was placed on the cake. That gave it the shiny “wet” look, but this step is not necessary if you want to skip it!

Happy Caking!

Rose