Zombie Mayhem

The girlchild had her 13th birthday party the other day. I was going to throw a pizza at them and leave them to it, but she said she wanted one more theme party. I may have mentioned that this is the kid who makes me Work For It. The other kid wants Legos – hooray, rectangles! This kid wants Zombies.

I made a Brain Cake. After viewing several photos found online, I decided on Red Velvet cake with pudding in the domed top. Apparently the red coloring originally came from a chemical reaction between the cocoa and vinegar in the recipe, but today's cocoa is too alkaline to produce that muddy red. I relied on Wilton's.
Before – zowee, that’s RED!

During – hollowing out the dome. I don't remember where I learned to freeze a cake prior to Doing Stuff to it, but it works like a charm.

After. As you see I am no professional; my cakes are all baked with love, and with intentions much finer than the execution. The color is not “true” here, it’s a pinkish-grey that was kind of disgusting. The pudding was a purply grey, brain-matter-ish enough that one kid ate around it! I was hoping it would ooze out when cut but it was too cool so it just hung there looking like a gelatinous blob in the middle of the red ... but that was adequately creepy.

I splattered basic white plates with a bit of red food coloring and a toothpick:

For goodies, I made cute little origami bags. I followed this online tutorial. A little bit fiddly but not too bad and a very pleasing result. My justification? A zombie is much more effective if she carries something adorable. Right?

I found pewter lapel pins shaped like brains, and threw in some Finger Food – plastic Halloween fingers. Also a few sweets – some round hard candies (eyes) and also some cherry cordial Kisses (‘cause they ooze red!). And I found the most adorable zombie dudes to print and fold at thunderpanda.

Only one structured activity – they really are getting too big for this! I boiled a mess of spaghetti, put it in a large shallow dish with olive oil, and added several large marbles. They had to fish for the “eyeballs” with their feet! It was yukky and funny all at once. I tried it too – almost impossible to grab the marbles with one’s toes, but a scooping technique worked. And my feet were so soft I wouldn’t be surprised to see this on the Menu at the local Spa! So, lots of fun but I have to admit I was "dead tired" the next day.