The Walking Dead Cookies- Daryl's Ear Necklace
With Breaking Bad done and over, I have this additional hour of free time on Sunday evenings to be really productive and get a head start on the upcoming week. Or... I could fill the time by watching the new season of The Walking Dead. TV usually gets my vote.
Season 4 starts in a few days and I wanted to come up with something special for the event. With it also being Halloween season, I wanted a cookie that could double for both occasions-- a gross prop perhaps. Daryl Dixon is my favorite character on the show and his ear necklace was perfect choice. Here's how to make them.
Preparing the Dough
The Walking Dead ear necklace cookies are made with a small skull cookie cutter. If you don't have this cutter, a sandal cookie cutter would work well, too.
After cutting out the skull shape in the dough, carve out a small hole in the middle using a 2A icing tip. Next, trim off one of the "cheek" edges (either one side is fine).
The Icing Process
You will need flesh-toned piping and flood icing. Sugarbelle has a wonderful tutorial on mixing skin-tone icing colors. I followed her tips, but to make the skin colors more corpse-like, I added a touch of sky blue coloring.
Step 1
After the cookies are baked and cooled, begin by applying a thin layer of flood icing to the surface of the cookie using a food-only paintbrush or an offset spatula. Leave it to dry.
Step 2
With piping icing, outline the outer edge of the cookie and the inner cavities of the ear like shown below. Then, with flood icing, fill in the middle of the outlined sections. Leave this to dry and set for about 1 hour.
Step 3
After the previous layer had time to set, repeat the outline/flood process one more time like shown below. Leave this to dry completely overnight.
Step 4
The following day, I "antiqued" the cookie by using LilaLoa's method. I applied a combination of cinnamon and dove grey petal dust to the ear crevices using a round-tipped, food-only paintbrush. First remove the excess dust from the brush onto a paper towel then brush on the cookie. Don't worry about getting it perfect, zombie ears are very forgiving.
Step 5
The next step is to add the blood splatters. I used red airbrush coloring and an unused toothbrush to flick color across the cookie. Just slide your thumb over the bristles and aim towards the cookie surface. (Wear a rubber glove if you don't want red fingers afterwards.) If you don't have airbrush food coloring, thin regular food-gel coloring with vodka to get the same consistency.
Step 6
To finish off the look of Daryl's ear necklace, I purchased a spool of leather string from a craft store. Lace the leather string through the holes of a few ears to complete the necklace. Instant zombie killing souvenir!
Because these The Walking Dead ear necklace cookies only used one icing color, I had a lot of royal icing left over. I figured why not cookie-fy my other favorite character of the show, Michonne and her zombie pets. (I told you I had extra time on my hands.) The boy and the girl cookie cutters from KarensCookies.net worked out perfectly for these designs I drew up.
If you'd like to see more The Walking Dead treats, check out the fun links below:
