Zombie Nomz

I have to say that Lauren Babis' "Zonmbie Nomz" was my favorite entry from last year, so I had been intimidated to try the design. UNTIL my boyfriend's dad called and asked if I could make the birthday cake for his other son, something w/cats (a running joke). I knew what I had to do.

I started w/ a chocolate cake mix, adding more cocoa, chocolate pudding, and subbing Celebrator beer (my favorite) for the water. The icing was buttercream mixed w/ ganache- yummy, but wouldn't do again as it was to soft for a fondant cake to look its best.

I started off making the kitty face and paws, zombie head and hands, and guts out of gumpaste and leaving them to dry for a few days. I had an idea of how I wanted to do this cake, but wasn't sure how it would work so I just kind of went w/ it and saw what happened.

I started out with the first tier, and carved part of it to be the zombie torso. I covered this layer in purple and blue fondant. Then I decided where to place the hands, and then added fondant arms. I had wanted to go w/out supports, but since we'd be driving an hour w/this cake I didn't want to chance it. I used bamboo skewers to help secure the hands, paws, and kitty head. I painted the zombie body and then added some of the guts.

Then it was time to start w/ the kitty. My original idea had the top like the bottom (half a purple round tier/half figure) but decided that just the cat body would work out better. I carved some cake and covered it in fondant. I placed the paws on the cake, and covered up the seams w/ thin fondant to make arms. At this point I decided that Mr. Kitty needed a little plastic surgery- just some cheek implants and some more padding-nothing too Kenny Rogersish. After that I painted the kitty

Since I didn't have two purple tiers as I had originally thought, I decided it needed more color-so I covered the board w/fondant. It was a pain to do it after the cake was already started, but looked so much better, and I knew I'd be able to cover the seams w/guts.

Then I painted and positioned the skull, and attached the gumpaste eyeballs with toothpick pieces. The little eyeball veins are very thinly rolled gumapste- a horrible pain in the butt, but looks so cool I think it was worth it. I finished off adding some more little details, like the kitty's teeth.

I am very happy w/this cake; hope you like it too:)