Mad Hatter Hat Cake #2

My 2nd Mad Hatter Hat Cake.  The 1st one was for my niece, this one was for her best friend.  A lot of improvements made from the 1st one; One of the many benefits from making the same cake again - learning what to do better the next time around!

I baked 3, 6" round cakes (each layer was 2" tall) with 5 layers of Strawberry Buttercream filling: Chocolate - Vanilla - Strawberry Sour Cream Cakes.

Here are the 3 cakes stacked.  Through the insanity of working on 2 different cakes at the same time, I did an ganache dam then filled the layers with strawberry buttercream.  NOTE!  Don't do a dam when you will be carving the cake!  It made it very messy and very difficult to cut nice, smooth sides with.  Work on a frozen or at least a very well chilled cake - makes it easier to carve.  The hat is sitting upside down here with a 4.5" circle that will become the bottom base and used as a guide to carve the cake to.

 

Next, cover the cake with ganache and make the hat's rim.  I rolled out a 9" round circle and lay it over a 9" board that was heavily dusted with corn starch to keep it from sticking.  I then cutout a 4.5" round out of the middle for the base of the cake to sit in.  Brushed the entire rim with chocolate ganache then let it sit overnight in the fridge to firm up with some balls of foil in various spots around the rim to give it some dimension.
Tip:  Using the same size board as the rim helped keep the hat's rim perfectly round and not get twisted or stretched out of shape.

Once the ganache was set and dry, I used the same technique as on the previous cake by using a ball tool to swirl the pattern all over the hat.  Used piping gel to attach the rim to the cake board then placed the cake over that.  The cake was very tall (7") and not very stable so I hammered a dowel right down the center and into the cake board (you can see the cake bulging at the bottom).  I rolled a piece of modeling chocolate and wrapped it around the bottom (around 1/2" tall and 1/4" thick) to give it some extra support.

Making the board was tedious but well worth it.  I was trying to come up with something in the movie and fell in love with the checkered board and had always wanted to make one.  I used a diamond impression mat to cut out the squares and then patched up the pattern directly on the cake board.  Another reason to use a diamond impression mat and to also get perfectly uniform and perfect squares....worked like a charm!

The entire hat and rim was dusted with patches of Dark Chocolate Brown Petal Dust and Avocado Luster Dust.  The little trinkets were dusted with gold, pink, and white pearl dust and the modeling chocolate ribbon was dusted in pink pearl dust and painted with white gel colors.  The stick holding the date is a skewer while the other 2 sticks (black and white) were dried pieces of spaghetti painted with gel colors.  The feather was made out of fondant and dusted in various colors.

I used the Alice In Wonderland font for the name and age.  And made 2 dozen assorted "Eat Me" Petits Fours to go with the Hat Cake.

The "Eat Me" Petits Fours were cut from a Vanilla Sour Cream Cake baked in 10" square pan = 24 pieces each 2.25"L x 1.5"W x 1.75"H.  They were filled with Strawberry Buttercream then covered in MMF.  Royal Icing was used to pipe the white swirls and "Eat Me".

My other Mad Hatter Hat Cakes:

my first Mad Hatter Cake

My third Mad Hatter Cake

Mad Hatter Hat Cake

My niece tuned 9 and loves the new Alice in Wonderland movie.  Her only request for a cake was to have "Eat Me" Petits Fours in different colors.  I surprised her by including some cake truffles and a Mad Hatter Hat Cake.

Making the Petits Fours was difficult but I think that my cake may have been a little too large and soft (2"x1.5"x1") to cover with poured fondant.  I also tried using melted canned frosting and melted chocolate.  The photo above shows the cake covered with a layer of MMF and then coated in chocolate.

All 3 techniques failed at giving a very nice and perfectly smooth covering so I ended up just covering them one by one with rolled fondant instead.  I have to give Petits Fours another try with poured fondant and hopefully in the much more traditional, 1"x1" size.  JoesPastry.com has a nice blog with detailed instructions on poured fondant and petits fours.

In addition to the Petits Fours, I made some cake truffles (aka cake balls) dipped in white chocolate dyed pink then drizzled with dark chocolate.  Bakerella.com has the basic recipe but I don't like mine being too sweet so instead of using a can of frosting, I use a little bit of simple syrup and cream cheese...just something to give it a little bit of added flavor and a little moisture to help the cake stick together.

The hat was made by baking 3, 6" round cakes:  2 layers chocolate and 1 layer vanilla filled with Nutella buttercream.  I froze the cake for a few hours to make it easier to carve.

I then covered the whole thing in chocolate ganache, let it set for about an hour then used a warm ball tool (just rub the tool against a hot, moist towel for a few seconds to warm it up), and created various swirls around the cake.

For the hats rim, I rolled out the MMF, cut out a hole in the middle to match the size of the bottom of the cake, dusted the cake pedestal (or cake board) with corn starch to keep it from sticking, spread some royal icing directly in the hole in the middle for the cake board to stick to, then placed the ganache covered cake over on top of it.

Cover the hats rim with ganache, add the swirls, wait for the ganache to set then dust with moss green petal dust and gold dust all over the cake.  I then added the ribbon and rolled up balls of foil and lifted the hat's rim in various spots for it to dry with a little dimension to it.  I then put the cake in the fridge overnight to set and get it nice and cold for the drive to the party the next day.

As for the little details:  Painted the ribbon with white gel color thinned out with almond extract, piped out her name to match the Alice in Wonderland font with royal icing, and used skewer sticks to hold all the other little decorations.  For the tag, I dusted it with an assortment of colors (moss green, sunflower yellow, gold, lavender) to get it to look aged, poked a hole in the corner, let it dry overnight then thread it through one of the skewers.  All the little trinkets at the end of the skewers including the feather were made in fondant and painted with various colors and gold dust.

Allison was so excited and absolutely loved her cakes.  The Mad Hatter Hat Cake is one of my all time favorites....I would love to do this one again.

Update:  Had the wonderful opportunity to make this cake again for her best friend, see Mad Hatter Cake #2

Link to another:  Mad Hatter Cake #2 

and another:  Mad Hatter Cake #3