Week 28: Watermelon Lemonade

The Recipe
1 large watermelon
~1l soda water with citrus
Powdered sugar to taste

Do yourself a favour and make sure to either get a seedless watermelon or one with REALLY BIG SEEDS!! I got one which claimed to be seedless, but which ended up having a ton of really tiny seeds instead. They were a hassle and a half to remove and took MUCH longer than it ought to!

Cut the top off the watermelon and scoop out the flesh into a large bowl, removing any seeds on the way. Either add it to a blender or use an immersion blender to mash up the flesh finely. Depending on how much pulp you like you can either leave it as is or pour it through a sieve to just get the juice. If you do the latter, leave it to drip for awhile, stirring the remaining pulp from time to time - you can get a lot more out of it than you originally think.

Pour in the soda and add powdered / caster sugar to taste. It does have to be caster sugar rather than regular, as we want it to dissolve completely.

Add some ice cubes to the hollowed-out watermelon and pour in the lemonade. Keep the rest in a jar next to it for easy refills.

The Verdict
Really easy to make, but it didn't look quite as "wow" as I'd hoped. I think next time I might go for the easy solution and just cut up the watermelon rather than using it as a serving dish. The large surface area also allowed the fizz to disappear really quickly from the soda, which was a shame.

I did like it though 🙂 I didn't add quite enough sugar, so it was a bit on the sour side, and I think I should have limited myself to 1/2-3/4l soda instead, as it got quite diluted. Regardless, it still tasted really good, so I'll consider it a success!