I'm making a surprise birthday cake for the first lady of the church. My problem is I don't have a dome shaped pan for the top. And also, what sizes of pans should I use? The biggest round pan I have at the moment is a 9". I also have 6" rounds. Do you think this is a good proportion or ratio in sizes? Could I round the top a little by carving? One last thing, I need some kind of simple but elegant pattern to put on the hat... just nothing too overbearing.

I don't know if this is what you're looking for or not, but I have a hat cake in my photos. If I remember correctly, for the bottom I used a 9-inch cake and 2 6-inch cakes for the top. The decorations are fondant. HTH!

Do you have a glass or metal mixing bowl?? If you do, you can bake a cake in one of those.

Hope that helps!

Have you taken a peek in the gallery? I just did a search for 'hat' and although there are a lot more different pics of other things than hats there are some good ones in there. Some were done with standard cakes pans like you have, just rounded off or , like smileyface suggested, some used a pyrex bowl.

Also, is the cake just for the lady in question or will you need to feed a group of people? If it's a large group you might want to place it on top of another sheet cake, if you have the pan, or make a bigger cake to put it on.

BTW PinkPanther, your hat is very cute! Sophisticated and regal looking!

Gee, thanks Tripletmom!!