food carving: cucumber leaves

I was sitting on our porch yesterday. It was sunny and nice and I didn't want to go inside. I couldn't just sit and not do anything either. This is when I remembered that long time ago (before all the crazy events happened in my life and I moved far-far away) I posted a picture of a cucumber leaf on twitter and pinterest and many people asked me about it. And now I finally have time to show you how to make it! So this is me on the porch with a cucumber.

First of all I cut my cucumber lengthwise in half and then the piece I got in half as well. If you work with a smaller cucumber you might only need to make one cut to half it. This is what I started with:

The I cut the first slice into a leaf shape:

I use a special thin carving knife as you see on a photo below but for this leaf you can easily work with just any thin kitchen knife. It's important for you to have a knife you feel comfortable working with.

I made a groove along the center of the leaf. It doesn't have to be deep - just to create a midrib. Then I made symmetrical leaf-shaped cuts on both sides of the leaf by taking out little cucumber pieces off the main part. These should be spaced to give an alternating green and white pattern. Keep making these cuts along the stem. The little leaves should get smaller as you get nearer the thin end of the cucumber.

This is what my cucumber looked like after the previous steps:

Around the outside edges of the cucumber I cut out small triangle shapes. And this is my finished cucumber leaf:

I hope you enjoyed my little carving post. If you have any questions - feel free to ask, I'll be happy to help! I also will be really happy if you make your own leaves and share your photos! :-) Good luck!

Katie

PS: my old picture with other ways of carving a cucumber: