I have to make a cowboy hat but I don;y have a hat to work from or a template any ideas how large to make the brim of the hat. I don't have a clue how big to make it. Thanks

It would depend on how big of a cake you are making, I made one and just kind of eye-balled it! You want a few inches between the cake (hat) and the brim!!

There is also a tutorial on the home page on "How to make a Cowboy Hat".

I am going to make the cake serve about 20 or so using 8" round then carving it out. I did read the tutorial but she used a hat as the template.

What I would do, Roll out your fondant on your mat and use your pan as a guide for the actual hat and just cut around the pan (in kind of an oval shape) but make the sides of the brim a little wider. What I did after cutting out the brim, I placed it on a piece of saran wrap and pulled the sides of the saran wrap up (the wide side of the brim) and then secured the saran wrap and let brim dry so it holds its shape. Hope I am making my self clear, I used my styrofoam dummy to shape brim and attach saran while drying! HTH! Then when you bake cake and carve and cover with fondant put some royal icing in the middle of the brim to hold cake board in place then finish your decos.

Not sure how much this will help you, but here is a link to cake works central that has a tutorial on how to make a cowboy hat cake. Jen

http://www.cakeworkscentral.com/scrapbook/cowboyhat.htm