Make a super simple basketball-themed appetizer for your March Madness watch party! Top ham and cheese sandwiches or crackers with a round piece of cheese that's been decorated to look like a basketball to make your basketball party snacks a slam dunk.
Whenever I host a party, I always serve some form of cheese and crackers, so for a March Madness themed party, I wanted to make basketball-shaped cheese cut-outs, but a round piece of cheese looks like, well, a round piece of cheese.
To transform this cheese "ball" into a basketball, I needed to add the ball's black seam lines which was really easy to do with a fine tip paintbrush and some black food coloring.
After drawing seam lines on all those basketball tortilla chips for my last post, I'd gotten the hang of it and created a dozen cheese "balls" in no time.
How to make Basketball Cheese Slices/Sandwiches
Ingredients:
orange cheese slices (American, Cheddar, or Colby)
black food coloring
deli meat slices (ham or turkey)
bread or round crackers
optional: mayonnaise or mustard
Special Equipment Needed:
round cookie cutter (I used 1 ½" round)
fine tip paintbrush (use a paintbrush that is only used for food projects)
Instructions:
- Use a round cookie cutter to cut circles from cheese slices, deli meat, and bread (if using.)
- If you are topping crackers with the cheese, use a round cutter that is the same size as the cracker.
- Squeeze a few drops of black food coloring into a small bowl.
- Use a fine-tip paintbrush to paint the black food coloring onto the cheese creating the seam lines of a basketball.
- Depending on how you view a basketball, the seam lines look different. I created two different views.
The surface of the cheese is so smooth that the paintbrush glides easily across the top and I was able to make nice even lines.
I tried using a food coloring marker but found that it dried out as it went across the surface of the cheese and created streaks instead of lines.
Just be sure to use a paintbrush that has only been used for food for this project and I recommend a very fine tip brush.
Once you've created your cheese basketballs, you can arrange them on a serving platter, or do as I did and make little ham and cheese sandwiches.
Mini basketball sandwiches
- Assemble little sandwiches by topping a bread round or cracker with deli meat and a cheese slice.
- Optional: spread some mayonnaise or mustard on the bread before topping it with meat and cheese.
NOTE: If you make the cheese up ahead of your party, be sure to layer the slices with plastic wrap and store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.
There are so many fun things you can do with this decorated cheese.
More March Madness Basketball Themed Food
from Hungry Happenings
Basketball Cookies filled with Candy
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- How to make peanut butter? - February 15, 2024
- OREO Penguins - December 20, 2023
Anonymous says
Using a cookie cutter for the bread, cheese and deli meat would make this fool-proof. I initially thought you used a food marker, but thanks for the heads-up about that creating streaks.
I'm going to start measuring crackers 🙂 as they usually look much bigger on the box and then I have to buy even more boxes to get the right size. We all know what happens when the crackers are not the right size for a project 🙂 That's why I like your idea of bread and the cookie cutter. Everything will match up perfectly.
Tavette
Beth Jackson Klosterboer says
You are right, Tavette. It is always hard to determine the size of crackers in a box. I've bought cookies and crackers only to find the size was not what I needed too.
木不子 says
Thanks for sharing such cute idea. I shared one picture with link in my article, talking about ham and cheese creative ideas. The following is my article.
http://www.cupcookstudio.com/2012/10/5-cheese-ham-yummy-ideas.html
If there is anything offended, please leave me a message or write me an e-mail
cupcook2009@gmail.com
by Gloria from Taipei
Beth Jackson Klosterboer says
Thank you for including my recipe in your post.
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