Zombie Bride Cake

Nothing screams Halloween quite like zombies, gore, and horror. Today I'm giving you all three by creating a zombie bride that dug herself out of hell and is back for revenge.

I knew that this Halloween I wanted to make something a little outside of the box and take cake to a different level, attempting to make something no one in their right mind would want to eat. I will admit this cake was quite challenging, but if you really love what you do and have just a little patience I truly believe anyone could make this cake.

Two 10" cakes

One 8" cake

6 lbs ivory modeling chocolate

3 lbs dark chocolate modeling chocolate

3 cups chocolate ganache (2:1 ratio chocolate to cream)

1 lb fondant (I used satin ice, but any brand will work, or even homemade)

1 lb gumpaste

Fondant tools

Turntable

Powdered sugar/cornstarch

Oil/shortening

Fondant smoother

Fondant roller

Gloves (optional)

Serrated knife

Paring knife

Pastry wheel/fondant cutter

Offset spatulas

Airbrush and compressor (optional, you can always just hand paint it as well)

Food colors (especially red, you will need a lot of red)

Vodka (for mixing paints)

Food writers (if you don't like painting fine details these are a great alternative)

Paint brushes (regular paint brushes are fine but just make sure you designate them for food only)

Paint pallet

Edible glue

Rice Krispy treats (store bought or homemade both work)

9 by 13 board

Floral wire

Something to dry roses

Sugarveil

Sugarveil mat

Piping gel

Corn syrup

Oreos

Strip cutter

I always like to start with things that can be made ahead of time, so in this case we're going to start with the maggots, worms, and in the next steps flowers and the heart.

Maggot:
For the maggots I started with some flesh colored fondant which I then rolled into little tubes and I made the indents with a strip cutter. I let them dry overnight and then I mixed some vodka with brown and yellow food coloring and coated them in the mixture and used a fork to separate them onto wax paper.

Worms:
-6 oz raspberry jello
-1 package plain gelatin
-3 cups boiling water
-green food color
-3/4 cup heavy cream

Mix the jello and gelatin with boiling water, when it comes to room temperature add the cream and food color. Fill a cup with straws making sure there are no gaps and tie them tight with a rubber band and then pour the jello mixture into them and let set overnight. I squeezed the worms out of the straws but if it won't come out run them under a little warm water and they'll pop right out.

Roses:
I'm not going to go super in depth with the roses but if you want a more in depth tutorial there are a lot available on YouTube. I started by making the buds of the flowers and rolling a tear drop shape, I then made a hook on my floral wire and dipped it in some edible glue and stuck it into the bus and let it dry overnight. Once they were dry I used a standard Rose cutter for the petals and used a ball tool to thin them out. My roses had five sets of petals each but you can chose however many you want.

Accent flowers:
For the baby's breath and blossoms I used floral wire with a small hook on the end, a #10 tip and a blossom cutter. I ruffled the circles and attached then to the hook and did the same for the blossoms and let them dry overnight.

To make the heart I first started off by making a half heart shape and then I rolled a tube of red to and a tube of purple, I attached the purple first then the red around it and defined the ventricals, I then took more red to make two things coming out of each side. I then took blue fandango and added the final tube. With flesh colored fondant I made tons of little balls and attached them on both sides and used a small ball tool to add detail. After that I took more blue and rolled it thin to make the veins. The last step was to airbrush the whole thing with a mix of red, brown, and black to make it look extra gross.

Bake whatever cake you chose as directed and then be sure to give them plenty of time to cool and then level them.

You are going to want to stack the two 10" cakes and then you will want to cut the 8" cake into quarters and then put two quarters side by side on each side to make the shoulders. I also used some of the extra cake from leveling them to build a little hump for the neck to sit on.

Once you have all the cake stacked you can start carving it into the shape of a torso shaving off some of the front and back and making the shoulders slimmer. Then cover the whole cake with ganache and let it set before moving on.

If you are planning on traveling with your cake you will definitely want to add a structure but because I wasn't I left it out.

For my head I used rice crispy treats, but you could also add more structure and use cake. I molded a sphere out of cereal treats along with a neck and then carved the sphere down into a face shape.

I then took modeling chocolate and rolled out pieces of it and put them on one at a time blending the seams together. Take your time on this part so you can keep it as clean and smooth as possible.

I then rolled two balls of fondant and flattened them slightly for the eyes, and then rolled out very thing strips of modeling chocolate to make the eyelids.

For the eyes I used brown, yellow, white, and black food colors with vodka to paint them and add depth.

I then added eyebrows and painted half the lips, I also added cat eyes for eyeliner but that's obviously optional.

For the teeth I rolled out a piece of fondant and cut little squares and attached them to the side of the face without lips.

For the dress I rolled out some fondant to be 1/4 inch thick and then used paint brushes to make the ruffles, then I pinched one side to be the front. I then attached it with edible glue and repeated the process for he other side.

To make the hair I rolled out several tubes of modeling chocolate and attached them to the head, using the warmth from my hands to make them stick, going all the way around the head.

To start make the blood using piping gel, corn syrup, and red, blue, and brown food color.

If I did this again I would probably start by usuing cocoa powder and brushing it all over to make her dirty. But in my case I made the wounds first.

To make the wounds I just cut into the places I wanted cuts and then filled them with blood,
I then cut a chunk out of the left side of the cake and stuck the heart inside and poured blood on it.

To assemble the flower crown I used melted chocolate and attached the roses and then filled in all the gaps with the baby's breath, blossoms, and leaves.

For the veil I used a product called sugarveil that you can find online or through Amazon. The instructions vary per mat and package, but I basically just mixed a 2:1 ratio of powder to water and medium speed for 4 minutes I then spread it on the mat and set it in the oven for 7 minutes.

To finish things off I crushed some Oreos and spread them around the board and then added the worms and maggots.

After that I added more blood and thinned out a small amount and splattered it all around and that's all there is to it!

I hope you guys enjoyed this tutorial!