I am doing a cake for my Aunt's red hat meeting next month. I wanted to make a red hat like the one in the picture. Should I use all gumpaste for the rounded part and the brim? I know I will using fondant for the wrap.

Any suggestion as to make this as painless as possible. Thanks

I'd use gp for the whole brim... it would shape nicely.. then I would do fondant for the "ribbon" going around and draping down

This will be sooo cute.. Can't wait to see it!

I guess I'd do the same thing to hold that shape for the brim (gumpaste , that is). Is the middle of the cake the only part you need to be cake?

Good luck with your cake. I'm sure it will be beautiful! I took a less ambitious route with a red hat cake, and it was pretty "painless" as you were looking for. If you want to take an easy route, mine is pictured here: http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1179110

Me... I would take it to a copier that does 11x17, enlarge it as big a possible, and cut it out. Put it on top of a sheet cake and cut out the shape. I would then try to use cake for as much of the scarf as possible, cover it all in red and purple fondant, and then work on the details... Once the fondant is applied you can use your gumpaste tools to help with a lot of the details that make it come alive! Just some ideas for you to kick around.

Good luck!
Pat

Very pretty cake Robin.

Actually I wasn't going to make any of the hat cake. I was going to just make the hat out of fondant and gumpaste and put it on top of a 1/4 sheet cake.

Thanks for all the great ideas. You all really got me thinking now. The meeting is in a restaurant and she doesn't want it to be to much of a fuss to serve, so if I do the hat in gp and fondant they can just remove it and cut the cake.

If I make the center of the hat from gumpaste and use the Wilton mini ball pan would I fill the pan or just press the gumpaste into the shape of the sides of the pan?

I was also going to put a big red daisy on the scarf where it wraps arond the hat.

pjaycakes
I did one for a lady i work with for her Birthday i did a oval and i had a pin that was in the shape of a hat i let my BC icing crust and i made a imprint of the hat onto the cake i outlined it with purple bc icing using tip 2 then i took and piped the red icing into the outline and smoothed it then i let that crust then i took my purple again and made the outlines it turned out really cute i then used red and purple icing and did a rope border around that i wished i knew how to download my pic i could show you , If the pic you have has anything about copyright no one will copy it for you i already went that route when i was doing that cake,