Sugar Geek Show logo

menu icon
subscribe
search icon

Updated on December 2, 2021 by · This post may contain affiliate links ·

Barnacle Zombie Cake Tutorial

Skill level: Intermediate

It's finally here! Liz Marek's award-winning Barnacle Zombie which placed 1st at the 2018 Atlanta Cake Show. Many have been asking for a step-by-step tutorial of this sculpted cake featuring an all-cake body, realistic seaweed, aged skin and barnacle textures, and an awesome bog water cake board.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to sculpt a body from all cake, how to create the features of the zombie head, including the edible brain, how to get dynamic curves in your cake sculptures, and how to use a Cake Safe to transport a sculpted cake to a cake show.

1:27:47 Minutes of Instruction

What You Will Learn

  • How to sculpt a realistic zombie with an all-cake body
  • Learn how to make a sculpted figure look dynamic
  • How to create layered colors and a cohesive design
  • Learn how to make barnacle details and realistic seaweed
  • How to use a Cake Safe to transport a cake to a cake show

Tutorial Chapters

  1. Building the structure 0:44
  2. The skull 2:45
  3. Building the jaw 4:41
  4. The body structure 11:00
  5. Adding the cake 13:44
  6. Sculpting the cake 18:04
  7. Sculpting 3D elements 20:32
  8. Covering in ganache 27:18
  9. The teeth 29:49
  10. The eyes 33:02
  11. Creating wrinkles 34:56
  12. Creating the forehead 40:36
  13. The jaw 42:35
  14. Covering in fondant 43:18
  15. Defining the bones 46:22
  16. Torching the fondant 49:44
  17. Adding torn fondant 51:45
  18. The ears 55:07
  19. The mouth 58:30
  20. The brain 59:57
  21. Making seaweed 1:00:44
  22. Making arm bones 1:02:24
  23. Making arm muscles 1:04:21
  24. Making skin texture 1:07:22
  25. Airbrushing 1:09:00
  26. Painting 1:12:25
  27. Royal icing barnacles 1:14:47
  28. Chocolate barnacles 1:16:52
  29. Coloring the barnacles 1:19:56
  30. Using the Cake Safe 1:22:43
  31. Finishing the cake 1:25:34

More Course Preview

About Liz Marek

Liz Marek is a professional cake artist and recipe developer who has been teaching baking and cake decorating since 2008. She founded Artisan Cake Company in Portland, Oregon in 2009 and now runs Sugar Geek Show, where she publishes kitchen-tested recipes, food science explanations, and step-by-step tutorials.

Liz is best known for sculpted and hyperrealistic cakes. She won Netflix's Is It Cake? Holiday 2 in 2025 with a hyperrealistic Santa cake, and has competed on and won Food Network cake competitions. Cake Masters Magazine named her one of the top 10 cake artists in 2017. She is the author of Artisan Cake Company's Visual Guide to Cake Decorating and a graduate of the Oregon Culinary Institute.

Her focus is on explaining not just how a recipe works but why it works, so bakers can troubleshoot instead of guess. Every recipe on this site is tested before it's published.

Liz teaches full-length cake tutorials, including sculpted and hyperrealistic cakes, at Sugar Geek University.