This week's design was a bit more challenging than before. I will admit that I did modify the cookie, so it doesn't look exactly the cutter. I don't think it's cheating but my husband thinks otherwise. It's better to modify a cutter you have than to purchase a new one.
When I started these cookies I was either going to make a full zombie or a zombie hand coming up out of the ground, rising up from the dead. I challenged myself and made both. I used the same cutter for both cookies.
I had to make a few sketches of both before I came up with designs that I liked. For the full zombie body, I used a circle cutter to cut off all but one spike. I used a food coloring marker to transfer my drawing onto the cookie. First, I piped the whites of the eyes. To create the bags under the eyes, I used purple petal dust combined with a small amount of white food coloring to make a paint. I painted the bags directly on to the cookie. Next, I piped and flooded all the green areas, piping around the purple bags. For the section under the shirt, I piped a small amount of icing and spread it out thinly with a paint brush. Then I added the shirt and pants. What clothes do zombies wear? The final touches were adding the facial features, hair and warts. Once all the icing was dry, I came back and painted the zombie to dirty him up.
For the second cookie, I covered the top portion with a thin layer of black icing. Once it dried, I used this stencil to airbrush black lines. Immediately after airbrushing and without moving the stencil, I covered the same area with black disco dust. I piped a white tombstone shape on top of the black. It's fun to see trends come and go in cookies. In 2008, I remember when I first used wafer paper. I used this wafer paper to make the tombstone. I adhered the wafer paper with water once the white icing was completely dry. Then I piped the brown grave section and green grass. Finally I piped the hand coming out of the grave. Again once everything was dry, I painted the cookie.
This is the cutter I used if you haven't figured it out already.