Lawn of the Dead

A few weeks before Threadcakes started, Cake Wreks featured a cake zoetrope. They were so cool, I really wanted to try one. I chose “Lawn of the Dead” because there could be movement to it.

I planned out 10 frames to make, and started making all the pieces. Now, I am okay at making figures but I not good at making 10 identical of each figure! I had 10 Stick-throwing-zombie heads, 10 Zombie dog, 10 barbeques (with arms and spatulas), 10 Sitting-on-blanket-Zombies, and 10 of the cricket/croquet Zombies. I ended up making 5 other cakes (3 Threadcakes) just to avoid continuing to work on zombie figures.

So in the end (being the day before Threadcakes ends) I just went with the one scene that was finished: the Cricket/Croquet Zombies.

I made an 8” and 6” cake. I’ve made this cake so many times, I just did the recipe from memory this time. I decided to at least have fun with the cake and make it look like brains. I tinted the batter grey with a bit of black food coloring and then painted some black food coloring on the inside of a piping bag. When the batter gets piped out it has black edges. I squeezed it into the pans in random patterns, hoping it would look brainy when cut. Between the layers, I added some blackberry jam. Redder jam would have been better for a bloody look, but the blackberry will just be a grosser Zombie-blood look.

After coving the cake in green buttercream, I remembered that the original plans required a 13” cake for these Zombies to stand on … oops. Didn’t feel like making more cake so I made up some rice krispie treats (with some cheerios since I had a rice krispie shortage). I placed the 8” pan inside the 13” pan so I could just make a ring around the existing cake.

Once the cake was done I carefully divided out the 10 frames and placed the figures in place. The only inedible piece of the cake was the floral wire used for the wicket-thing.

Overall, I’ve VERY HAPPY with the video! But I know that this whole thing could have been better. I’d like to challenge someone to make the entire design as a zoetrope next year! I could spend hours watching cake zoetropes.