Zombies in the graveyard cake

Ben's instructions for his birthday party cake this year: Zombies coming up out of the ground in a graveyard.  And don't make it too "cute".  The last several cakes I've made for Ben's birthday celebrations were definitely more cute than creepy.

The graveyard part was going to be easy; I did one last year that turned out pretty well and was really very easy to make.  I did a ton of internet searches for zombies and I was seriously grossed out.  Some things are just not meant to be part of a dessert...and I draw the line at a lot of gore.  So I made what I thought were fairly un-cute-but-not-too-disgusting zombies out of fondant and set them aside about a week before the party.

I made the graveyard part of the cake very similar to the one I did last year but moved the fence down to the bottom of the cake because the zombies were so darn big...they would have been as tall as the fence.  And even though I think there is a large amount of latitude when it comes to things like that on a cake, it was just too obvious. 

Ben loves the number candles...we get one every year even if they don't match anything else on the cake.

 

One of the guests had some special dietary considerations, so we made a separate treat for him with his own little zombie guy on it.

Ben was happy with it and he had a great time at his party - now we can move on to Halloween planning!