Vintage Recipe Roulette: Frosted Melon from 1948
I've had my eye on this one for years, mainly because it looks like it has its eye on me
Before we get into it today, friends, I want to mention my home state’s heartbreak with the recent central Texas flash flooding, which largely came at night, and hit RVs and kids’ camps along the Guadalupe River. The news continues to be crushing. I’ll post some links to donate for people and pets below, but I also want to commend one of the subjects that happens to be in today’s post — grocery chain H-E-B. I happened to have had a great time covering them taking 5,000 tortillas through airport security this week for Texas Monthly, but as much as we can count on them for fun and games, we can also always count on them for help. They’re sometimes called Texas’ FEMA, because they are the first ones to show up when we have a disaster, and the last ones to leave. This tragedy, centered as it is on their birthplace city of Kerrville, is no exception. I’ll return you now to this regularly scheduled post, but please keep the H-E-B employees who are serving there in your hearts, along with those affected by this devastating flooding.
I found this on Reddit quite a while back, but it’s watermarked Bored Panda, and none of that matters because it’s actually from an ad in a 1948 Ladies’ Home Journal:
Filling a melon with Jell-O is weird, but peeling it and frosting it with cream cheese? Unhinged. The text is a bit difficult to make out, but I gave it my best shot:
“FROSTED HONEYDEW! New... as exciting to eat as it is to look at! And it's so easy to make.
Peel a medium-size honeydew melon; cut slice from one end; remove the seeds. Fill cavity with water then use that water, brought to a boil, for dissolving a package of raspberry gelatin dessert. Drain melon well. When the gelatin is somewhat thick, fold in well-drained canned fruit cocktail or cut-up fresh fruit. Fill the melon; place it in your refrigerator till the gelatin is firm.
Soften one 8-oz package of Philadelphia Brand Cream Cheese with a little milk and whip it fluffy. Frost the melon; place on plate with crisp lettuce leaves.
Cool, colorful slices, topped with Kraft French or Miracle Whip Salad Dressing, make grand salads. Omit the dressing and you have a luscious [?] dessert. Spring this surprise tomorrow.”
The wagging finger and the red “WATCH OUT!” at the bottom is a caution not to use anything other than Philadelphia brand cream cheese, lest your most carefully Jell-O filled melon fall flat and leave you the object of PTA mom derision.
I’ve had my eye on that recipe for years, mainly because it looks like it has its eye on me, and I’m afraid to turn my back on its piercing red gaze. But, my beloved local H-E-B tipped my hand this week by offering up a bunch of crazy melon varieties with names like Emerald Crunch, and Lemon Pop. I ultimately chose the Lemon Pop and one called Summer Craze, without any idea what lay inside.
I looooove cantaloupe, but I haaaaaate honeydew, so this is really taking a walk on the wild side for me. Let’s see what we got!
Okay, here’s the Lemon Pop. It looks like a cantaloupe on the outside, and at first glance, like a honeydew on the inside…ick. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t scared, but I’ve noticed that the juice is still orange! This gives me hope. As for the flavor, wow! It’s most like a cantaloupe, but the predominant flavor really is lemony. There’s something of a cucumber note, or a watermelon rind pickle overtone. It’s sweet enough, but it’ll make your lips pucker. Really delightful on a hot summer day.
The Summer Craze may look like the product of an illicit affair between a banana and a football, but it looks pretty cataloupe-y inside. The flavor is also cantaloupe, but it’s cantaloupe-plus. There’s a pronounced creaminess to it, and a subtle but sweet melon flavor. It even feels less watery on the tongue, although the flesh is quite firm. It’s not crunchy like honeydew, though. Quite a puzzler! And also, the perfect candidate for frosted melon, because there’s plenty of real estate for slicing.
It wasn’t as hard to hollow out from one end as I expected — I just stirred up the seedy goo and poured it out. when I filled it with water to measure for gelatin, it washed out a couple of remaining seeds, so I just removed those and made Jell-O as instructed. I already had lime and pineapple, so that’s what we’re doing. There was about a cup of capacity, and I’m using a 3 oz package of Jell-O, so this will be in jiggler territory, ratio-wise. I can only assume that’s what was intended — I can’t imagine 1940s melons had much more space in there.
When you need to suspend fruit, remember: a lot of fruits have to be cooked so that their natural enzymes don’t interfere with gelling (I guess we just pray that raw melon doesn’t do this?), and the gelatin has to be set to jelly consistency so the bits will stay suspended. I’ve got it in an ice bath, and you can see the pineapple is floating at first, and then sinking in listless acceptance of its ignominious fate after gelling sets in. Then, I spooned it into the melon and stood it up in a snug container so it could set.
Once the gelatin is set, though, it’s time to frost, and welllll, I know the ad cautioned me Philadelphia brand or bust, but the store brand is almost a dollar less right now, so the I’ll take my chances. I know you want to see this whole behemoth all frosted up like a cantaloupe Yeti, but I can’t stomach (pun very much intended) wasting a whole package of cream cheese on this thing that I am almost certain is going to be folly. I only half-peeled the melon and am just coating up enough for a couple of slices.
I’ve never frosted a melon or even otherwise seen a frosted melon, so I’m figuring it’s ludicrously difficult, or it’d be in all the women’s magazines from back in the day. There’s no way to make cream cheese spread evenly on a big, wet melon. It would be a huge, white lump of…lump. Even in the promotional ad, it looks like a gigantic olive with a bad case of athlete’s foot.
As expected, though I added only a teeny bit of milk to the cream cheese, and it was still too much. Friends, that cream cheese slid off the melon like water off a Rain-X’ed duck. I tried adding some powdered sugar to see whether that would make it sticky enough to stick. It did make it sticky, but not stick-y. Still pretty much slid right off. I did my best to photograph it while giggling uncontrollably.
I’m sorry — I really just could not get this to look nice. Maybe it’s me — maybe I’m just hopeless, but I actually am a professional food writer and typically take my own food photos, of weird things like bean salad and cottage cheese tortillas.
I’m not the worst at it, right? I humbly submit that the blame lies with the recipe. None of the parts adhere to each other. As soon as you slice it, the Jell-O plug falls right out. Good luck getting it onto the plate without that slipping underneath or off the plate entirely, all while trying not to let the frosting slide off onto your shoes. It’s going to be all over your fingers, and very shortly all over your carefully arranged lettuce garnish.
Although the recipe suggests serving with mayo to make it savory, I’m sorry…after the injury of an unworkable recipe, I refused to add the insult of mayonnaise. I’ve had it before, and it’s awful, though really, really hilarious.
If you make this…you know what, I can’t. Don’t make this ridiculously fussy and untenable chimera of a dessert salad. The flavors of the cream cheese, melon, and fruited Jell-O don’t adhere any better than their surfaces. It’s three ingredients that happen to find themselves in the same place, like strangers on the bus home after a particularly disappointing concert, in which the lead singer threw up something green and then fell off the stage.
Links for donations to the July 2025 floods in central Texas, and thank you for your support for my fellow citizens:
Our local Out of the Way Cafe is another business leading the charge to help out. Their nonprofit Out of the Way Community Corp is collecting money for supplies requested by people who are actually on site. You can find their links to further info and their Amazon list there, too.
Austin Pets Alive is assisting surrounding counties with handling the many lost and displaced pets after such widespread flooding. They need food, supplies, and foster families — they already had 60 additional animals within 24 hours of the event.
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Need food-first, picky eater-friendly, non-judgmental help with nutrition? You can schedule an appointment with me through Nourish here. I promise I will not suggest you eat ketchup cookies or Jell-O salad. I see lots of diabetes, neurodivergence, allergies and GI conditions, autoimmune and inflammatory disorders, and weight management whether for increase or decrease — adults, teens, and kids. We take most insurance, and most often, the copay is $0.
And feel free to share this post with any honeydew-loving psychopaths you know.