Zombie Skeleton Hand Candy

When we think Zombie, we only think about rotten skin, maggot wounds, pale skin, and lots of blood and blood clots. So this time I thought of making something unusual i.e., skeletal remains of a dead zombie. We'll be making Zombie Skeleton Hand Candy. Because this a zombie hand skeleton, don't expect it to look like human hands. A zombie skeleton would be slightly bigger and might have little more thicker bone skeleton than a human hand.

This recipe comprises of simple ingredients that you're already having at your home or can gather with a quick trip to the supermarket. The structure of the skeleton comprises of 3 layers. The outer layer is made up of hard white chocolate, the middle layer of soft peanut butter and vanilla, and the innermost layer with crunchy pretzels.

A perfect treat to give your guests in the next trick or treat. A quick dessert for your midnight snacking and to curb that sweet craving.

Even archaeologists will think this is real, or I mean to say BONE-A-FIDE! Sorry for the bad joke :-P

Here's how you can make the Zombie Skeleton Hand Candy...

Supplies

Pretzels

• All purpose Flour - 1 cup or 100 g
• Instant Active Dry Yeast - 1 tbsp. or 8g
• Sugar - 1 tbsp. or 12 g
• Salt - 1 pinch or 7 g
• Egg - 1
• Water - 2.5 cups 590 ml

Peanut Butter Clay

• Creamy Peanut Butter - 3 tbsps. or 50 g
• Powdered/ Icing Sugar - 6 tbsps. or 100 g
• Butter - 2 tbsps. or 30 g
• Vanilla Extract - 1 tsp or 5 ml

Outermost Bony Layer

• White Chocolate - 400 g or 1.5 cups (chips)
• Red and Brown Food Color - 2 drops OR Coffee Powder and Sugar and Raspberry syrup - 1 tbsp. each.

TOOLS AND EQUIPEMENTS

• Digital Kitchen Measuring Scale - 1
• Mixing Bowls - 1-2
• Small bowls -3-4
• Spoons - 1-2
• Plastic tray - 1
• Sauce Pan - 1
• Frying Slotted Spatula -1
• Plate -1
• White Sheet with hand skeleton print - 1 A4 size sheet
• Clear Plastic sheet - 1 A4 size sheet
• Silicone brush -1
• Flat Silicone Spatula -1
• Number 10 Paint Brush -1
• Rolling board -1
• Cotton - Small swab
• Needle/Safety Pin/ Oil Pin -1
• Parchment Paper - 1 A4 size sheet
• Oven and baking tray

Step 1: Proof Yeast

Start of with activating the dry yeast. For this,

1. Take 40 ml of lukewarm water in a small bowl.
2. Add in 1 tbsp. of sugar, and 1 pinch of salt in it.
3. Add in 1 tbsp. of active dry yeast to this mix and stir.
4. Leave this mix undisturbed for 10 minutes until it becomes frothy and emits it character odor. Your yeast mix is ready.

Note: Lukewarm is the temperature when you dip your finger inside the water, you can't feel if it is hot or cold. Cold water wouldn't activate the yeast and hot water would kill it.

Note: I've used demerara sugar here as it is comparatively healthy than sugar, but you can use regular sugar as well.

Step 2: Prepare Dough

1. Take 1 cup of all purpose flour in a large bowl.
2. In the center, make a hole as shown in the picture.
3. Pour in the yeast mix inside the hole. Don't worry it it overflows we just need the mix to combine the dough.

Step 3: Knead

1. Mix everything together and knead the dough with your fist for 5-10 minutes till everything combines well. You can use a stand mixer if you have one but kneading with hands also works.
2. Once done, apply 1-2 tbsps. of vegetable oil, cover it with a muslin cloth, place it in a damp dark place, and leave it undisturbed for an hour.
3. After one hour you'll notice that the dough has doubled to that of it's original size.

Note: Add in more flour or dust the countertop if the dough is too sticky or if sticks to the countertop while kneading.

Step 4: Shape

Now we'll make the pretzel sticks that would make the base of the entire hand. Think of them as the bones of the skeleton hand bones. Make these very thin. If you make them thick then further layering process will increase the thickness of the fingers turning it into a fat zombie hand, And we don't want that.

1. Place a parchment paper on a baking tray and grease it with vegetable oil.
2. Now take a small chunk from the dough, roll it into a small ball, and roll it out cylindrically to form 14-15 inch sticks, using both your palms on a cutting board or rolling board. The Refer to the pictures for more clarity.
3. Place these sticks on the greased baking tray so that they don't stick on any other surface.

Note: To make skeleton hands, the pretzel sticks need to be very very thin unlike the regular pretzel sticks. You can refer to the pictures to get an idea about their size and thickness.

Don't worry if they break apart from the middle, we are going to break these sticks anyway to form the bones. Just make sure each stick is as long as your pinky finger.

Step 5: Boil

1. Take a saucepan and pour 2 glasses of water in it and bring it to boil.
2. Add in the uncooked pretzel sticks one by one once the water is boiling hot.
3. Leave the sticks in for 1 minute.
4. Remove the sticks after 1 minute with a slotted spatula on a plate.
5. Once cooled, transfer the sticks on to the baking tray.

Note: Don't leave in the sticks for more than 1 minute or else they will get overcooked.

Step 6: Egg Wash

• Break open one egg in a small bowl and add 1 tbsp. of water to it. Give it a good whisk.
• Use a silicone brush to brush the pretzel sticks with the egg water mix.

Step 7: Bake

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degree Celsius for 10 minutes.
2. Once done, put in the baking tray with pretzel sticks for 30 minutes and 150 degree Celsius.
3. Once baked, remove and set aside to cool.

Step 8: Peanut Butter Clay

Here comes the easiest part of the recipe. We'll be making a moldable clay out of peanut butter and sugar amongst other things and it only takes a few minutes and some mixing. For this,

1. Take around 4 tbsps. of creamy peanut butter in a mixing bowl.
2. Add in 3 tbsps. of powdered/icing sugar.
3. Then add 4 tbsps. of salted butter.
4. Finally add 1/2 tbsp. of vanilla extract and give it all a good mix.
5. If the concoction sticks to your finger, then add in more sugar till it workable.
6. Once it reaches the right consistency, you can make 3 balls as I made out of this mix.

The peanut butter clay is ready to use.

Step 9: Print Skeleton

Here comes the fun part where we draw a skeleton structure. To make the edible hand skeleton you need a reference image to visualize it.

When I was making this recipe, I made a rough sketch of the hand skeleton on Illustrator and printed it on an A4 sheet. If you want to use my sketch for reference, then I've attached it below.

I also used a clear plastic sheet which I took out from an old file organizer that had A4 sized plastic pockets. It's a great way to secure the paper with your sketch inside the plastic so that it doesn't move or get dirty while you work on it.

Step 10: Trace

1. Once you've printed your sketch on an A4 paper, keep a plastic sheet on top of it or use a folder plastic pocket as I have used and place your paper inside it.
2. Then, cut the pretzel sticks according to the length of the parts in the skeleton hand. Please see the picture above for more clarity.

Step 11: Clay Modelling

1. Once you're happy with the length and positions of the sticks, move on to the clay modelling step.
2. For this, take small amounts of the peanut butter clay and cover the pretzel stick with it to form the hand bones.
3. Trace the design printed on the sheet, by placing the pretzel and clay on the plastic sheet to copy the dimensions of the sketch.
4. Take your time to go into fine detailing and mold and sculpt the nubs and curves of the bones. Usually, the center portion will be thinner than the nubs of the bones.
5. Repeat this for the entire hand, until you reach to a hand skeleton that looks like the picture above. Make sure you don't put too much clay because we want the white chocolate to forma the body of the bones.
6. Once you're happy with it, keep place the sheet with the sculpture on a tray and keep it in the Freezer.
7. Chill in the freezer for 2 hours or until firm to touch.

Note: Take as mush as your time to mold, sculpt and carve these because they are going to act as a basic structure of the bones. That's really going to help in the further recipe.

Step 12: Melt Chocolate

Once the sculpture has set and hardened, you can move on to melt the white chocolate that will make the outer layer of your skeleton hand.

For this,

1. Take 400 gm of white chocolate chips or broken white chocolate bars in a bowl.
2. Boil 2 cups of water in a saucepan.
3. Once the water is boiling hot, place the bowl with the white chocolate on top of the saucepan. Note: Do not immerse it.
4. Take a flat silicone spatula and keep on stirring the chocolate till it melts fully and you have no lumps. We call this method as double-boiling method.

Step 13: Dip and Cool

1. Once the chocolate has melted fully, take the bones and dip them one by one in the melted white chocolate.
2. Cover them up with the white chocolate from all sides. I used a spoon for doing this.
3. Once done, remove and keep it on the plastic sheet we used earlier.
4. Do this for every part of the hand, and then keep it in the refrigerator to set for 1/2 an hour atleast.

Step 14: Shave and Smooth

Ok at this point, the zombie skeleton hand may look like a big mess and out of shape. The white chocolate might have hardened and it may seem difficult for you to change it back to original. But don't worry we can still shape to some extent.

1. For this, use a sharp potato peeler and shave out the excess amount of white chocolate. Take your time to smoothen out the bones. You can use other carving tools as well to carve out realistic features in the bones.

You can compare the before after picture above for your reference.

Step 15: Fill Gaps

At this point, there might be some gaps in your structure that might not have been covered with the white chocolate completely. Not a problem!

We can use a paint brush to fill in the gaps with melted white chocolate without disturbing the structure of the bone.

For this,

1. Melt 50 g if melted white chocolate in a bowl using the double boiling method.
2. Dip in a Number 10 clean paint brush in the chocolate and cover the gaps with the chocolate present in the bones with the brush.
3. Once done, keep it in the freezer to set for atleast 1/2 an hour.

Note: Do this step very carefully and patiently.

Step 16: Prick

If you carefully observe an old bone, you'll notice numerous tiny holes in it. It's a sign of bone decomposition. Because we're making a zombie bone, I wanted to make it look dull, old, deteriorating, and sort of realistic.

For this I used a regular needle. You can use a safety pin or oil pin too.

1. Remove the bones from the freezer.
2. Prick the ends of the bones numerous times with the needle to form the tiny holes.
3. Dust off extra chocolate with fingers.

Step 17: Final Detailing

For the final detailing, I chose to make the bones even more old and dull. Old bones are brownish in color instead of white. Also, I added a little hint of red to add in a little more horror effect donating blood.

For this, I used brown and red food color and lightly rubbed it on the bones to give it a realistic effect. If you don't have brown food color, you can mix 1/2 tbsp. of instant coffee powder with a 1 tbsp. of water and 1tbsp. of sugar, and use this as your color. For the red color you can use raspberry syrup.

1. Take 1-2 drops of red and brown gel food color in a container and mix them together.
2. Take some cotton and dip it in the gel food color mix.
3. Dab off the excess on a sheet of paper.
4. When you get the slightest hint of brown on dabbing, then start dabbing the cotton on the bones especially their curves. This will highlight the features of the bones.
5. Once done, assemble the parts together to make it look like a hand. You can refer to the sketch we printed earlier to get an idea how to place which part where.

Step 18: Done!

And there we are with a perfectly edible and delicious cookie zombie hand skeletal bones. I'm sure you'll absolutely love the peanut butter, chocolate, and pretzel combo. Serve it to your guests on a plate and I'm sure they'll find this interesting and tasty too.

BONE-APPETITE!