Cook Talk

Fresh cut fruit for 300
Natalie
06/17/08 		Hi Ellen!

I'm catering a dessert receiption for a wedding - they're expecting 350, but asked for fruit for 300 (many of the 350 number are small children). I have amounts figured for everything except fruit. It's self serve from a cold box into 9oz plastic cups. Fruits are watermelon, pineapple, grapes, strawberries, and a few blueberries for color (no cantaloupe or honeydew melon).

Am I right that about 15 gallon of cut fruit will feed 300 people?

ellen
06/17/08 		Check the fruit tray page for quantities. A 9 ounce cup holds a full measuring cup of fruit, so if you really think they will take a full cup, you have 240 servings.
Natalie
06/17/08 		I'm planning to chunk the fruit - bigger pieces - so the cup can't hold so much. I got my 15 gallon number from the fruit tray page - just converted to gallons. Is cutting it a bit larger not a good idea? It'll still be bite-sized - just bigger bites. :-)
ellen
06/18/08 		Good plan- OK
Natalie
07/02/08 		Just following up. I went through almost 18 gallons of fresh cut fruit for about 320 people. I filled 4 cold boxes (about 3 gallons each) and 3 covered catering trays with fruit just a tad larger than bite-size. I pre-portioned fruit into 9oz cups - didn't fill them quite full. Ended up with maybe 10 little cups of fruit leftover.

I used:

48lbs of pineapple (already cleaned and cut into spears from SAMS, then I cut into bites)

24lbs of strawberries, cleaned and cut in half

9lbs of black grapes, whole

9lbs of red grapes, whole

6 large watermelons

4 pints of blueberries

Cut up everything the night before, mixed together, and refrigerated. Drained the morning of, pre-portioned, and ready to go!

Thanks so much for your help, Ellen!

ellen
07/02/08 		Thanks for the follow up, this is great for other readers.
ellen
07/03/08 		And isn't it interesting that even the "little children" managed to down a fair share? With the increase of the 15 gallons to allow for the larger serving, 18 was just about perfect.
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