It takes less than 10 minutes to make this cute carved orange warthog & fill it with a toddler fruit salad. Plus, it’s a great alphabet lesson for your kiddo!
Okay first of all I just LOVE that with Corban’s shirt it looks like this warthog orange is wearing a propeller beanie! Isn’t that hilarious?!
A couple weeks ago I was making jack O’ lantern oranges for a client, and ended up turning one of them into a cute little warthog. It was so fun and easy, that I decided to have Corban help me with the next one so we could use it for another Alphabet Kid Snack.
HOW TO MAKE A CARVED ORANGE WARTHOG
We had some cloves and almonds get mysteriously devoured throughout our photo shoot, so you may notice some continuity errors in the photos. Keeping it real!
The first step for carving your orange is to slice off the top and bottom. Try to determine which end has the thickest peel and make that the bottom so you can slice it off without exposing too much of the pulp. The two ends will be your warthog’s ears, so be sure to save them.
The next step is carving out the eyes, nose and mouth. You’ll need to do this step for your mini chef. You need to use a small flexible paring knife to outline the shape of the eyes, nose, and mouth, then to carefully peel away the zest (the outer orange part of the peel) to expose those parts.
Next it’s time to scoop out the pulp inside. You can just jab the knife around in there and then let your mini chef scoop it out with a spoon. A grapefruit spoon works great for this! Save the pulp in a bowl so you can use it in the fruit salad.
Once the face is carved, and most of the pulp is scooped out, use the tip of the knife to poke two slits into the mouth for the teeth. Then use a toothpick to poke holes for the eye balls and nostrils.
Give your mini chef the cloves and slivered almonds to poke in and make the face.
For the fruit salad, chop half an apple up very small, and quarter some grapes. Chop the orange pulp you scooped out into bite sized pieces, and toss it with the grape and apple pieces.
Let your mini chef fill their carved orange with the fruit salad, and lean the ends of the orange against the side for ears. Corban grabbed another orange end to put a top on this warthog. He said it needed a closed head so its brains didn’t come out.
Now your mini chef’s carved orange warthog is complete! It’s filled with a safe toddler fruit salad (thanks to the quartered grapes and tiny pieces of apple), that your mini chef can easily eat with their fingers.
It’s even safe for baby Larkin, who totally tackled Corban to try and steal his fruit salad!
If you’d like to use this as an alphabet lesson with your toddler or preschooler, just carve some letter Ws out of a slice of apple. We say “Wuh, wuh, wuh, warthog” to practice the W sound. Then we look for other things that start with the same sound (window, wall, water, etc.).
Book synopsis: “Walter Warthog wants the wonderful white wagon in the hardware store window! But his wallet is empty. Will he find a way to earn money and make the wagon his very own?”
We love having a book to go along with our alphabet kid snacks, and Walter Warthog’s Wonderful Wagon is perfect! Not only is it full of W words, but it also teaches a wonderful lesson about earning things that we want and the importance of hard work.
Corban loves saying the title over and over again. Now that’s a tongue twister!
We hope your mini chef has much fun making this cute warthog as Corban did.
You can check out all our alphabet kid snacks here!
OUR FAVORITEÂ TOOLS TO MAKE A CARVED ORANGE WARTHOG
Here’s some links to our favorite tools for making this warthog.. By clicking through one of these links to buy ANYTHING from Amazon, you don’t get charged extra, but we make a small commission from whatever you buy. Thank you for supporting our family business!
Carved Orange Warthog with Toddler Fruit Salad
It takes less than 10 minutes to make this cute carved orange warthog & fill it with a toddler fruit salad. You can also cut some letter W's out of apple to turn this snack into an edible alphabet lesson.
Ingredients
- 1 large orange
- 6 red grapes, quartered
- 1/2 small apple, finely chopped
- 4 cloves whole
- 2 slivered almonds
Instructions
- Slice the ends off of the orange. Try to make the thickest part of the peel (often the stem end) the bottom so that you do not slice into the pulp. Save the ends for the warthog's ears.
- Use a flexible paring knife to score two ovals for eyes, a circle for the nose, and a smile.
- Now use the knife to carefully scrape away the zest (top layer of the peel) in these spots.
- Using a knife and grapefruit spoon, scoop as much pulp out of the orange (from the top) as you can.
- Mix the orange pulp, quartered grapes, and chopped apple together. You can chop the orange pulp a bit smaller if needed.
- Use a toothpick to poke holes in the eyes and nose for the cloves, and use the paring knife to poke slits in the mouth for the almonds. Check the photo for guidance on where to put them.
- Press the cloves and almonds into their holes.
- Fill the orange with the fruit salad (you may have some extra) and rest the two ends on the back of the head for the warthog's ears.
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Be sure to check out each of their Mini Chef posts as well!
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- Strawberry Cheesecake Rollups // My Mini Adventurer
This is the cutest thing ever. I love that you combined learning with ‘cooking’! Sending this to a friend of mine whose toddler is just starting to read and sound the alphabets. Oh, and I noticed the propeller beanie too! What a cute coincidence!
Wonderful! Thank you Tina!
Too cute! And yes, I love that first photo, too. Both of my boys names start with “W” so I can totally get on board with this idea.
That’s so cool Lauren!
This is absolute genius — my girls would have loved this when they were little!
That is adorable! Such a creative idea. I’m always so impressed with people like you who can come up with these things. They may be easy but take some serious imagination!
Aww thank you Alisa!
What a beautiful craft/snack to make with a little one!! This is adorable 🙂
This is absolutely beyond precious! And YES! Loved the propeller beanie!! Great unintentional shot! This is a must make with the kiddos! Thanks so much for sharing!!
Thanks Amanda! Those unintentional shots are so fun to discover!
This is so cute and clever! It doesn’t look too hard either, which is great since I’m fairly lazy…
Haha, I’m in that boat with you Stephanie. Easy is important!
What a fun way to play with fruit! My kids would love this!
What a fun idea and so creative too. I’ll be sharing this with my friends who have little ones.
Too cute!
This is just the cutest thing ever. I wish I had wee ones at home to do this for. I may have to borrow some toddlers to do crafts with. I see a niece/nephew-auntie craft day in my future. They will love this.
You’ll be the best auntie ever!