Recipe Experiment: Watermelon Cake! Say What?!

My hubby does not really have a sweet tooth. He doesn't care for cake and he REALLY doesn't care for frosting, so when I saw a link on his FB page with a note to me saying he'd like this for his Birthday I had to take a peek. I thought, "okay, we can give this a shot". Then he thought maybe I could do a "trial" run and make it for a group of guys from church who help run the sound and media..he was having them up for dinner and just to get together to visit but also to go over that part of the ministry of our church. I figured I was up for the challenge so decided to give it a go. 

The original link for the recipe came from the blog Paleo Cupboard. The recipe is a bit lengthy so please just click the link and go visit them for the recipe. I will share my thoughts and pictures below.

It really didn't take me long to put together. I chilled the frosted cake for a little bit before I put the almonds around the side. I really didn't want to risk everything sliding off the watermelon. Suprisingly it doesn't. 

I suppose you could use regular whipping cream or cool whip, but I'm not sure. The coconut milk with honey thickened up nicely and I'm not sure the others would do that. Another recipe did something a bit different with the frosting, using powdered sugar and a bit of coconut flour. Not sure why. I just stuck with the Paleo Cupboard version. I would probably try regular whipping cream next time, mainly because I'm not a fan of coconut.

It was a warm though wet evening but it was nice enough for the guys to eat outside. Hubby set up a table, covered it with paper and put crayons on it so people could doodle.

I cut a decent amount off each end of the watermelon. The cutting away of the rind was tricky and I didn't get it perfectly smooth, but, oh well.

The key to keeping the frosting from slipping off is having a watermelon that is not too ripe, and "drying" the outside off with paper towels, or in my case, napkins. 

Isn't that just purty!!! I dusted it just a bit with some powdered sugar, but it didn't quite work like I thought. I thought I could dust the sides as well, and, well, I couldn't.

The finished product. They recommended slicing the watermelon into 8 wedges and frosting and dipping the individual slices in the almonds. I DID NOT think that was going to work for me. I just know myself and I knew it wouldn't work. I frosted it just like a regular cake and pressed the almonds in with my hands. 

Isn't that just the coolest looking cake! NO ONE guessed it was a watermelon under the frosting. What a surprise. Especially to our Vegan friend who was there. 

What a success this was and I'm so glad I tried it.
With Joy UNquenchable,