Okay, full disclosure — my “bro-quet” boards for Father’s Day actually stemmed from (see what I did there) a whim I had on Mother’s Day to turn our sliced charcuterie meats into pretty/delicious rosebuds using some mad skills that I had actually learned as a kiddo. It was such a hit this past Mother’s Day that we decided it absolutely must be a part of our Father’s Day charcuterie spread too, but instead of calling it a meat flower bouquet board, we coined the the name “Bro-quet” board for the dudes, er… dads in our lives!
In the early 90’s, my mom’s cousin opened a bakery in Bradenton, Florida called Pastry Art, where our “aunt” created the most beautiful and delicious confections a person could ever dream up. We would visit her after school and on the weekends to decorate Christmas and Easter cookies and she always let us have our pick of sweet indulgences from her display cases. It was there that I learned how to sculpt fondant roses. From the moment my Aunt Diana taught me how to construct a beautiful rosebud, I knew it was a skill I would not soon forget. Whenever I fashioned pie crust roses with left-over dough, or passed the time with sculpt-and-bake polymer clay with friends, or even now just playing with Play-doh with my nephews — my little roses have never failed to make a happy impression. The best part is, they are unbelievably easy to create! So, as promised, here is the tutorial for creating your “bro-quet” boards with charcuterie roses!
The first step is to cut your circular meat slices in half so that they look like half-moons. Step 1.5 is to roll 1-2 half-moon piece(s) into a tightly rolled cone, straight edge down (round side up). This is how you get the iconic garden rose center swirl!
The second step is to take the other half-moon pieces, flat side down (round side up), and wrap the rolled-up center, “petal” by petal. The trick here is to make sure your new piece overlaps the end(s) of the previous piece, so as to keep it from unraveling.
Basically, you just keep on repeating step 2 above until you run out of pieces, then start on your next “bro-quet” flower.
So let’s talk ingredients! As you know I am an avid Instacart orderer, so I took the liberty of snapping a pic of all of our ingredients; however, due to spacial concerns regarding the size of our board, I had to pick favorites, but you can see here that there are endless possibilities for your unique tastes!
All ingredients above were purchased from from either Aldi or Big Lots via Instacart. Believe me when I tell you that all of this totaled up to well-under $100 and I only used about 75% of the ingredients in the masterpiece below!
I think it’s safe to say that my “bro-quet” board had evolved into more of a “bro-tannical garden” by the time I had finished! For the cheese and dried fruit flowers, I used some handy little fruit cutters that came with the super-fun sandwich cutters I had purchased a while back for my NC nephews!
Hoping you enjoy your own pretty/delicious charcuterie display and have much success, whether it’s a “bro-quet” or a “bro-tannical garden” board!
Here’s to all the family men out there serving their loved ones in fatherly love! Blessings on all dads of all kinds.
