Sunday 10 November 2013

Zombie Wedding

If you know me, you know I kinda dig zombies. I  don't mean I want to have tea with one, or go to a show. But since I can remember I have watched copious zombie movies, especially savoring the "B" variety. And now that the undead have permeated popular culture I am getting more zombie themed orders. YAY!!!! 
This wedding earlier this year was awesome in so many ways.The bride gave me lots of freedom, and when I came up with the idea to recreate her wedding venue with zombies for her wedding cake, she agreed. HuZah!
So she got some Walking Dead zombie action figures she wanted me to use,three total. And I set to work planning zombie theme wedding cake and cake balls. I was so into this concept, I even  did some planning, I even did math.. MATH!!!! in preparation for the cake. I tried my best to match the actual old country lodge they got married at. What a great challenge 8) 


The  big day was held at The Polish Lodge. It was the third wedding I have baked for at that particular venue. It is so gorgeous, I love it. However I did not anticipate the difficulty level if recreating the "log" part of the cabin. I did all the math and got the cake prepped iced, and  covered in fondant, and even pretty close to the right shape!

But how to make a remotely realistic log cabin effect that wouldn't be horrible to cut or eat? How indeed. After much contemplation and trial and error I decided on a labor intensive but effective technique. I wrapped round wafer cookies in coloured fondant, and then cut them in half. I stuck to halves to the cake in a log cabin pattern, using dark chocolate like mortar. i baked chocolate sugar cookies for the roof and covered that in fondant as well. (I hope the caterers removed that before trying to cut!)  I used the  cookies to build a balcony area as well. In the end I didn't get the dimensions perfect, but it was recognizable. After all my research I was very happy with my log cabin effect. The next step was to integrate their kick-butt invitations, and the Walking Dead figures. Oh and the Zombie themed cake truffles.

I made three different kinds of cake truffles. I missed getting pictures of one type. I made cake eyeballs, as well as the blood splatter balls, and the bones and guts balls. The blood splatter was really fun to do. Vanilla cake truffles, dipped in white chocolate. I melted a bit of cocoa butter and mixed in some powdered red colour, and I used a paint brush to flick and splatter my fake blood onto the cake balls. I love how they turned out!

I based the sculpts of the bride and the groom,  and "The Wedding" font on their invitations, which you can see in the background of this photo.








I particularly love this shot of the groom holding onto the bride while she blows the head off of an attacking zombie. 


There were three zombie figures. The exploding head fella pictured above, the missing legs lady seen below, and a third two part zombie you will see shortly


heeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheeheehee
I am demented.